This year, the growth rate of the machine tool industry is expected to reach 15%

Wu Bolin, executive vice president of the China Machine Tool Industry Association, recently stated that in 2009, the economic operation of the machine tool industry was basically stable and good, but the impact of the financial crisis on the industry and uncertainties still existed. It is estimated that in 2010, with the economic growth exceeding 8%, the growth rate of the machine tool industry will reach about 15%, and the gold-cutting machine tool industry will have a single-digit growth. In the year, the import and export of metal processing machine tools will show a recovery growth.

Machine tool industry carries multiple pressures

2009 was the most difficult year for China's machine tool industry after eight years of rapid development. The financial crisis has had a far-reaching impact on China's machine tool industry. Central leaders such as Hu Jintao, Wu Bangguo, and Wen Jiabao have repeatedly inspected machine tool manufacturing companies and have repeatedly made important instructions on the development of the equipment manufacturing industry, including the machine tool industry. This has greatly encouraged the industry to overcome the crisis and seek Greater confidence in development.

Affected by the financial crisis, the demand for machine tool market growth was weak, and the market size was generally shrinking. According to relevant statistics, the growth rate of domestic machine tool demand has dropped by more than 20%. The financial crisis has led to a slowdown in the progress of fixed asset investment projects, which has reduced the market demand for machine tools and increased competition.

At the same time, the market demand structure has also undergone significant changes. As major domestic user industries, such as the military, automotive, and railway industries have adjusted and upgraded, the demand for ordinary and low-grade machine tools has shrunk dramatically, and large-heavy and high-end CNC machine tools have maintained stable demand.

In addition, the user also puts forward more stringent requirements on the performance, reliability, service, and payment methods of the machine tool products. In addition, the price competition of foreign machine tool manufacturers increases the sales difficulty and pressure of domestic enterprises and weakens the Chinese machine tools. The price advantage of the industry has affected profitability and increased the risks faced by the industry.

Affected by the financial crisis, the offshore machine tool industry fell into recession, and machine tool output and sales decreased by 30% to 50% year-on-year. The reason for this is the sluggish manufacturing industry. Global infrastructure investment is at a standstill, and industries such as automobiles and general machinery manufacturing are experiencing difficulties. The demand for machine tools has dropped significantly. This also led to a significant decline in China's machine tool exports year-on-year, according to statistics, a year-on-year decrease of 33.5%.

Leap in the world's largest manufacturing country

Although the development of China's machine tool industry in 2009 was severely affected by the financial crisis, but under the guidance of the Central Government's correct policies and policies, the entire industry has firm confidence, tenacious struggle, and overcome the difficult times, and the industry's total industrial output value and sales revenue are still maintained throughout the year. Growth, and for the first time to leap into the world's largest machine tool manufacturing country.

According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2009, the industry's total industrial output value reached 401.4 billion yuan, an increase of 16.1% year-on-year; the product sales revenue from January to November was 331.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.2%. China is the only country in the world where the value of machine tool output and sales revenue has remained the only growth trend.

In 2009, the total output of metal-cutting machine tools reached 580,273 units, including 143,904 CNC machine tools, which were 13.6% and 0.5% lower than the same period of the previous year; the total output of forming machine tools was 2,188,67 units, of which 9315 were CNC machine tools, an increase of 6.1% year-on-year. 16.8%.

In 2009, exports of machine tool products totaled US$7.44 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 33.5%, of which exports of metal processing machines reached US$1.41 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 33.0%.

In 2009, imports of machine tool products totaled 9.70 billion U.S. dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 21.1%, of which metal processing machine tools imported 5,900 million U.S. dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 22.3%.

From January to November 2009, the industry realized a profit of 17.64 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 1.8%; the profit margin of product sales was 5.3%, a year-on-year decrease of 0.8 percentage point.

In 2009, the industry’s independent innovation achieved remarkable results. The process of industrialization of independent innovation achievements has been accelerated, and new product development has received great attention. CNC machine tools have become the theme for companies to develop new products, and the product structure has been further optimized. A batch of high-speed, precision, compound, multi-axis linkage CNC machine tools, and a large number of new products with large-size, large-tonnage CNC machine tools entered the market, enhanced the ability of companies to combat the financial crisis, and met the needs of national defense and national key users. It played a key role in the development of the national economy and the development of the defense industry. In particular, heavy-duty cutting machines have developed rapidly. They have developed and manufactured the world's largest 25m, 28m CNC vertical milling lathes, rotary-diameter 5m, weight-bearing CNC lathe horizontal lathes, and 10.5m CNC bridge-type gantry lathes, with a mast diameter of 320mm. The CNC floor milling and boring machine, 2500mm diameter roller grinder, and high-performance CNC forging equipment have attracted great attention from international counterparts. In 2009, 24 projects in the machine tool industry were awarded the “China Machinery Industry Science and Technology Award”, the first, second and third prizes.

In order to adapt to changes in market demand since the financial crisis, many companies have done a lot of adjustment work on major products. Compression of low-grade, common products, upgrading of economical CNC machine tools, focus on the development of high-end CNC machine tools and production lines. From the perspective of the entire industry, there are fewer low-grade and ordinary products, and there are more middle-to-high-end CNC products and special products. According to the statistics of the association's key corporate contacts, the metallurgical machine tool output value in 2009 was 52%, an increase of 3.4 percentage points year-on-year. The average unit price of gold-cutting machine tools and CNC gold-cutting machine tools was 195,000 yuan and 4.06 million yuan respectively, which was 21.9% and 8.8% higher than that of 2008 respectively. Industry experts pointed out that the effective adjustment of the industrial product structure benefits from the sound foundation laid by technological innovation and new product development during the rapid development of previous years.

After rapid development in recent years, some sub-sectors of machine tools have achieved advantages in the fierce international competition. Such as large and heavy-duty CNC machine tools and large-tonnage forging equipment, many times in the same stage with foreign products to beat many foreign competitors.

"In 2009, there was such a good performance. Objectively speaking, it was borrowed from the light of the financial crisis. Subjectively speaking, adjustments must also be possible. Because the machine tool product development must have a certain period, if not the first 3 to 5 It will not be the current situation since the beginning of development in 2005. The product structure adjustment is not an overnight event, and it is the industry-wide rapid development in the past eight years, while many people of insight have not neglected the research and new products of basic technologies. The development of this also gives us full confidence.” This is Wu Bing’s speech at the 3rd executive director (expanding) meeting of the 6th China Machine Tool & Tooling Industry Association.

He also said that the achievements made the entire industry more confident in overcoming the financial crisis. We can be considered as the world’s largest in terms of scale. However, we still have a long way to go in terms of comprehensive competitiveness. It will take a long time to catch up.

On the one hand, these gaps are manifested in the fact that most high-end products in the domestic market are foreign brands, indicating that domestic high-end products still lack competitiveness.

On the other hand, after one year's efforts of the entire industry, the machine tool industry successfully managed to meet the challenges of the financial crisis and achieved a two-way increase in output value and sales. However, the average profit level of the industry has not yet been increased.

There are many objective reasons for this, such as rising labor costs in China, more fierce competition, changes in methods, and low-end products immersing each other. However, an important reason is that the industrial structure of the entire machine tool industry is irrational, and the development of CNC systems, functional components and tools is lagging behind that of mainframes. Although in the course of difficult development, companies have also carried out technical reforms through their own savings, but this technological reform is also insignificant. Compared with the current world advanced level and even the machine tool industry in Taiwan Province of China, there is still a big gap, which restricts the sustainable development of domestic high-end CNC machine tools to a certain extent, because there is no domestic CNC system and functional components to arm themselves. This made it impossible for us to master the core technology. At the same time, the imported functional components and the high price of the CNC system made the price of the host computer less room for reduction. Therefore, this is also an important reason why the industry's profit level has not improved.

Continue to deepen industrial restructuring

Affected by the financial crisis, developed countries have begun to vigorously develop new and high technologies and increase investment in R&D to prepare for the next round of industrial upgrading in the post-financial crisis era.

At the beginning of the year, the Central Economic Work Conference proposed that one of the main tasks of economic work in 2010 is to intensify the adjustment of economic structure, pay more attention to improving the quality and efficiency of the economy, pay more attention to the transformation of economic development methods and economic restructuring, and pay more attention to promoting reforms. And independent innovation to enhance the vitality and motivation of economic growth. The country’s macroeconomic policies have created a golden opportunity for the structural adjustment of the machine tool industry.

Accelerating structural adjustment is an urgent requirement for China's machine tool industry under the forceful mechanism of the financial crisis. Today, the output value of China’s machine tools ranks first in the world, but it is still the world's largest importer of machine tools. The high-end CNC machine tools required for China’s economic construction mainly rely on imports; China has a relatively complete industrial chain, but the development of high-end CNC machine tools The required CNC system and functional components are mainly from overseas; we have the largest number of machine tool manufacturers in the world, but we still lack the famous international machine tool group and world-class “fine, special, and special” giant companies; we export a lot of “two” High-quality "products, and then import these export products manufactured high-end products. All this shows that accelerating industrial restructuring and product structure adjustment and promoting industrial upgrading are the most important and urgent tasks for China's machine tool industry.

At the same time, the Central Economic Work Conference also proposed that "continue to implement a proactive fiscal policy and a moderately loose monetary policy. We must focus on improving the pertinence and flexibility of the policy in accordance with the new situation and new circumstances." "To maintain a modest growth in investment, we will focus on completing projects under construction and strictly controlling new projects." This means that the state will use limited financial resources to encourage enterprises to research and develop high-tech products, create technologies that are conducive to energy-saving and emission reduction, benefit agriculture and rural areas, and improve people’s livelihood, and will not sacrifice the environment for the purpose of maintaining growth. "One-funded" product more stringent restrictions. The Copenhagen conference exerted greater pressure on countries to reduce their carbon emissions.

Regarding the work that should be focused on in the next phase, Wu Bolin stated that the following points should be noted: First, attention should be paid to the country's investment priorities and the adjustment of industrial structure should be accelerated. The second is to ensure the effectiveness of the enterprise by strengthening the effectiveness of management. The third is to seek breakthroughs and expand industry exports. In addition, technical reforms should be stepped up and technical reforms must be carried out at a high level. Attention must be paid to the integration of the two industries. In particular, key enterprises in the industry must do a good job.