Domestic demand for machine tools will reach a record high this year as the country steps up efforts to achieve its goal of becoming a leader of the world's manufacturing industry.
Wang Liming, vice-president of the China Machine Tool and Tool Builders' Association, announced yesterday in
Beijing that the country's spending on machine tools is expected to hit about US$10 billion in 2005.
Last year, the figure was US$9.46 billion, making China the world's largest machine tool consumer and importer for three successive years.
Robust growth in the aerospace and aviation, automobile, power equipment manufacturing, ship-building, metallurgic and petrochemical equipment manufacturing sectors, as well as many other industries has lead to sustained high demand for machine tools, especially advanced computer numerically-controlled (CNC) machine tools.
The strong growth has made China a lucrative market for the world's machine tool manufacturers, contributing much to the development of the global machine tool manufacturing industry.
For instance, China imported US$8.65 billion worth of machine tools last year, recording an increase of 45.24 per cent over the previous year, Wang said at a press conference yesterday before the 9th China International Machine Tool Show.
Scheduled to run between April 11 and 17 in Beijing, the show will welcome more than 1,000 machine tool and tool manufacturers and suppliers from 26 countries and regions around the world to showcase their latest products and technology over an exhibition floor space of 72,000 square metres. About half of the exhibitors will be from abroad, demonstrating the enthusiasm of foreign manufacturers for the Chinese market.
While maintaining the sustained growth of imports of advanced machine tools and tools from abroad, China has also made great progress in the development and manufacturing of CNC machine tools.
Last year, the country turned out 51,861 units of CNC machine tools, representing a rise of about 50 per cent over the previous year, he said.
Domestically-made CNC machine tools play an important role in accelerating the development of the country's manufacturing industry.
And domestic machine tool manufacturers, after years of development and co-operation with overseas partners, have enhanced their production, technological and financial capabilities.
As a result, a number of leading domestic machine tool companies have begun to enter the international market through exports and the merger & acquisition of some well-known foreign machine tool firms.
Figures from the association show that Chinese machine tool companies had purchased seven well-known foreign machine tool firms by the end of November last year.
Mergers & acquisitions have not only helped domestic machine tool companies introduce more advanced technology and equipment from their acquisitions, but have also brought them wider access to the world market as well as marketing and research & development expertise.
