Weichai Group aims to create
another group with an output value of 50 billion yuan centering on hydraulic
system manufacturing in the coming five to eight years in order to break the
foreign monopoly of high-level hydraulic parts.
Bottleneck
"In the engineering
machinery industry, the man who masters hydraulic control systems wins the
market”, Xu Hong says.
The hydraulic control system is
regarded as a bottleneck restricting the development of China’s equipment
manufacturing industry. In quite a long time, the global hydraulic system is
monopolized by Germany Rexroth Bosch, American Eton, and Japanese Kawasaki. To
cope with this situation, Chinese government also makes clear to focus on the
development of hydraulic products in the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan” for
high-level equipment manufacturing industry.
The hydraulic system is crucial
to quality and safety of engineering machinery. For example, Xu Hong says, a
50m aerial ladder fire truck is mainly relying on the hydraulic system to
stretch, so it is easily to break off if the hydraulic is not stable.
Hence, the hydraulic control
system takes up a considerable proportion in the cost of engineering machinery
due to its importance. “To take excavator as an example, hydraulic control
system accounts for 25% in the costs of complete vehicle”, deputy chief
engineer of Shandong Strong Construction Machinery Liu Daiyong says. For
excavators of Shandong Strong Construction Machinery, over 80% hydraulic
systems are imported and core components of hydraulic systems like main pumps
and valves are almost all imported.
Deputy Director of MIIT Policy
Department Xin Renzhou says recently that Chinese high-level equipment
manufacturing industry is largely relying on importing and most profits are
earned by foreign manufacturers. In the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan for Machinery
Basic Parts, Basic Manufacturing Technique and Basic Materials” clearly points
out the development index for hydraulic parts—sales amount rising to 70 billion
yuan in 2015 from 35.1 billion yuan in 2010.
Seeking for changes
Weichai Group has been targeting
at this market since long time ago. In September 2012, Weichai Power Co., Ltd.
(subsidiary of Weichai Group, stock number 000338) signed a strategic
cooperative agreement with German Kion. According to the agreement, Weichai
Power acquired Kion at a price of 738 million euros, 271 million euros of which
are used for acquiring 70% share of Kion’s Linde Hydraulics.
Linde Hydraulics, leading in
global static hydraulic pressure technology, is a major supplier of world-class
industry manufacturers like Caterpillar, Volvo and Liebherr.
General Secretary of the Party
committee of Weichai Technical Center Zhang Donghai says the introduction of
Linde Hydraulics will advance Chinese engineering machinery manufacturing
technology for 10 to 20 years.
On June 29, 2013, Kion is listed
in German Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Weichai Power further increases its share
in Kion to 30% of shareholding equity through call options. According to Zhang
Zhengqiang, director of policy research office of Shandong Heavy Industry Group
(parent company of Weichai Group), the cooperation with Kion will continue,
including the hydraulic systems.
Weichai Group targets at a sales
revenue of 200 billion RMB by 2020 and strive for the World Top 500.
Comments
Post a Comment