Business / Companies

Taizhong does heavy lifting for China's industrial sector

By Li Yang in Taiyuan (China Daily) Updated: 2014-02-25 07:29

Taizhong, based in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, manufactures China's largest mining excavators. With 14.6 billion yuan ($2.3 billion) in assets and 14,000 employees, Taizhong is now China's largest producer of hoisting and excavating equipment, space launch gear and heavy milling machines. Provided to China Daily

A Shanxi-based machinery maker that's almost as old as the People's Republic continues to blaze trails for the nation's manufacturers, reports Li Yang in Taiyuan

Taiyuan Heavy Industry Co Ltd (Taizhong) began life in 1950 as the first producer of heavy equipment in the infancy of the People's Republic of China.

Retired workers proudly call it "the oldest son of the republic", which itself came into being just a year earlier.

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Taizhong is now China's largest producer of hoisting and excavating equipment, space launch devices and heavy milling machines, among other products.

Known as the "trailblazer" for the nation's economy, Taizhong made many of the first pieces of heavy equipment for a nation emerging from decades of devastating conflict.

In its first decade, it drew on the help of engineers from the former Soviet Union.

During those years, Taizhong made China's first large bridge crane (1955), its first sheet rolling mill (1959) and the nation's first 4-cubic-meter power shovel, first portal crane (a type of machinery often used in shipyards) and first train wheel rolling mill (1961).

This much-needed machinery saved China large amounts of foreign currency at a time when the nation had little.

These products also helped in the construction of key heavy industrial and infrastructure projects in the 1950s and 1960s.

Taizhong's operations were paralyzed by the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), and the company didn't resume full production until the early 1980s.

As China opened up to the West, Taizhong quickly found partners from Europe, the United States and Japan.

It made the first large crawler crane in China in collaboration with Demag Inc, from what was then West Germany, in 1982. That was the start of Taizhong's most productive period.

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