Changsha: Highland for construction machinery on the rise

The third Changsha International Construction Equipment Exhibition was held at the Changsha International Convention and Exhibition Center in Central China's Hunan province from May 12 to 15.

With the theme of "New Generation of High-end, Intelligent and New Energy Construction Machinery", the four-day exhibition strived to build an innovative and open platform for exchanges.

The event attracted more than 1,500 construction machinery enterprises from China and abroad, 35 of which were the world's top 50 construction machinery companies. The cumulative number of visitors exceeded 350,000, with a total transaction volume of 53.6 billion yuan ($7.58 billion).

Nearly 100 companies from Changsha, known as the "capital of construction machinery", participated in the exhibition, including global construction machinery giants such as Sany Group, China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Corp and Sunward Intelligent Equipment, and small and medium-sized enterprises that have technological advantages in subsectors.

As a leading enterprise in the industry, Sany brought nearly 80 new products to the site. With an exhibition area of more than 10,000 square meters, the company was the largest exhibitor at the event. The new products it displayed fully demonstrated the company's recent research and development achievements.

"Against the backdrop of the country's dual carbon goals, electrification is an inevitable trend in the construction machinery industry. Sany exhibited more than 20 electrified products at this exhibition, and fully displayed its latest technologies in fields such as batteries, motors, electrical controls, and hydrogen fuel," said Zhao Hui, a Sany executive.

Known as a "little giant" enterprise in the tunnel and mining subsector, Hunan Wuxin Tunnel Intelligent Equipment brought multiple products to the exhibition, including the world's first curved arm rock drilling car that attracted many customers.

CRCC Heavy Industry brought its entire portfolio of tunnel construction equipment to the exhibition site. Its fully computerized three-arm rock drilling trolley is particularly powerful, with three long arms rising into the air, and it features precise control technology, three-dimensional scanning and contour reconstruction technology, among other things. Not only did the complete machine companies exhibit many star products, but the parts companies also demonstrated their core technological achievements. "Our aluminum alloy walking board is much lighter in weight than traditional iron walking boards and can reduce emissions, in line with the green transition," said Cao Zehua, deputy general manager of Xingsha Machine Tool Equipment Co.

As a high-tech enterprise in Hunan, Xingsha focuses on the production of engineering machinery parts and is a supplier of leading enterprises in the industry such as Sany and Zoomlion Heavy Industry. The company brought its main products such as structural parts and machined parts to the exhibition.

In the zone of innovative achievements in natural disaster prevention and control technology and equipment, Changsha-based Wasom Emergency Equipment showcased its latest product, a high-flow portable emergency rescue submersible electric pump. "Our product is ultra-lightweight, weighing only 28 kilograms, yet the hourly drainage capacity can reach 600 cubic meters," said Liu Bojun, an executive of the company.

Seentone, which specializes in the manufacturing of special vehicles for emergency rescue, brought four new products. Among them, a breakdown truck is designed for new energy vehicles. When a new energy vehicle runs out of battery power, the vehicle can provide emergency charging rescue services. At the exhibition, many people expressed great interest in this newly developed product.

In recent years, Changsha has been building itself into a global high-end equipment manufacturing base.

In March, CRCC Heavy Industry won the China Industry Award with its outstanding performance in independent innovation, transformation and upgrading, safety control and digitalization. Heavy equipment developed independently by CRCC Heavy Industry, such as the first domestically-manufactured open-type rock tunnel boring machine, the first 16-meter ultra-large-diameter shield machine, the world's deepest underwater tunnel shield machine, and the world's largest diameter vertical well-bore drilling machine, has led China's underground engineering equipment to make great strides in development.

CRCC Heavy Industry continues to expand the overseas influence of its brands with a marketing network covering 184 countries and regions around the world. Last year, its overseas revenue increased by 512.04 percent year-on-year. The company's rail transit equipment has broken into the Ugandan and Egyptian markets. And CRCC Heavy Industry's tunneling machine products have shown outstanding performance in the Chile, India and Sri Lanka markets. Its special equipment products have also been exported to the Serbian and Saudi Arabian markets in large quantities.

The Changsha area of the China (Hunan) Pilot Free Trade Zone provides fertile ground for Changsha's construction machinery companies to explore international markets. As a core area of the FTZ, Changsha has formed an industry cluster for construction machinery and accelerated the pace for Chinese companies in the industry to go abroad by exploring a path for exporting secondhand Chinese construction machinery via the FTZ.

On March 10, 216 pieces of used construction machinery from Sunward were exported to dozens of countries and regions. The exported machinery covered 12 categories such as rotary drilling rigs, excavators and pump trucks, with a total value of 317 million yuan.

Nowadays, Changsha's construction machinery industry cluster has become the main force in creating a highland for the nation's advanced manufacturing. In the future, it will focus on such fields as technological innovation, product R&D, complete machine and parts manufacturing, and intelligent services and help construction machinery companies build a number of high-end equipment manufacturing and operation centers as well as service and maintenance centers to expand their markets overseas.