How long will China's cranes operate at high levels?

On December 22, 2010, the annual meeting of the Construction Crane Branch of the China Construction Machinery Industry Association was held in Changsha with the theme of "Responding to New Markets and Strengthening Market Innovation - Cold Thinking under Hot Markets". While analyzing the status quo of the industry, the conference also provided new ideas for the sound development of the industry.

According to the statistics of the construction crane branch, as of September 2010, the total sales of China's four major types of truck cranes, crawler cranes, truck-mounted cranes, and tire cranes have exceeded 30,000 units. Among them, the year-on-year growth rate of truck cranes and tire cranes was nearly 40%; the year-on-year growth of truck-mounted cranes was over 40%; and the crawler cranes' growth rate even exceeded 60%. However, this explosive growth was mainly attributed to the contribution of the first quarter. After May, the sales growth of cranes gradually slowed down, with an average monthly decline of 5% to 10%. It can be seen that the crane industry has developed to a breakthrough and a critical stage, and its growth is gradually decelerating, and the industry will face a new round of challenges.

Since 2003, China's crane industry has always maintained a high level of operation, and it is one of the fastest growing models of construction machinery. Even in 2008, which was deeply affected by the financial crisis, it has maintained an upward trend. However, can this prosperity continue? Through the appearance of prosperity, we should have more rational thinking.

In recent years, loose monetary policy and investment has stimulated the market's prosperity, but at the same time, the drawbacks it caused are also emerging. The promotion of credit sales and financial leasing business has enabled the entry threshold of the industry to continue to decline, and the market has been abnormally enlarged. This has led to the expansion of the industry, resulting in negative effects such as overcapacity, disorderly competition, and serious product homogeneity. In 2010, the total capacity of the crane industry reached more than 50,000 units, while the market demand was approximately 35,000 units, and the ratio of supply and demand was close to 1.5:1. The production capacity was far greater than the market demand. At the same time, the trend of the market towards extreme tonnage continues to deepen, blindly pursuing large-scale product development and large tonnage development. The small tonnage products in the market have also increased significantly, but this is contrary to the trend of foreign small tonnage cranes being replaced by truck-mounted cranes.

The effect of investment will gradually decline, and the continuous tightening of the national monetary policy will force the crane and even the engineering machinery industry to return to rationality. Therefore, the difficulty of maintaining sustained high-speed growth for a long period of time is increasing, and steady development will become the norm. Then, after the boom, thinking about how to achieve healthy development has become a top priority.

In order to adapt to the pace of market adjustment, the industry should continue to increase R&D investment, strengthen technology upgrades and deepen differentiated services; seize the opportunity of the country to speed up the cultivation and development of strategic emerging industries for the construction machinery industry, and expand new business growth space , Seek new market growth points in such industries as energy conservation and environmental protection, new generation information technology, high-end equipment manufacturing, new energy, and new materials; strengthen industrial chain construction, increase the development of domestic technology platforms and supporting platforms, and focus on industry self-discipline work to promote The continuous improvement of the industry system; At the same time, the industry should also have a reasonable profit margins to ensure the sustainable development of enterprises and lay the foundation for enterprises to improve their core competitiveness.

Since the start of take-off in 2003, the construction crane industry has undergone continuous and rapid development for 10 years and has gone through the blowout and climax of the market. Nowadays, with the joy of madness, the industry has become more stable and mature, market competition has intensified, profit margins have decreased, and intermittent growth and decline have become possible. At the same time as the rapid expansion of enterprises, the industry is also reflecting on whether long-term patterns that have deviated from development sources in pursuit of immediate interests will last. Therefore, for the long-term development of the construction machinery industry, the industry should strengthen the awareness of the crisis, do a good job of self-discipline, adjust the industrial structure as soon as possible, and cultivate national strategic emerging industries, so as to promote the reasonable and healthy development of the industry.