China TRANSPO，the Seventh International Expo for Technology and Equipment of Highway and Waterway was wrapped up which has been held for seven times since 1994. A total member of 300 manufactures exhibited their state-of-art road construction and maintenance equipments and it was heralded for being a huge market, attractive to the world’s largest retailers and manufacturers.
China is also making great efforts to develop its motorway network. During the eleventh five-year plan, China plans to build 24,000km new motorways, making the total mileage of the motorway in China reach to 65,000km. It is predictable that the road construction and maintenance equipment manufacture will grow into a pillar industry by 2010. In addition, the competition between domestic manufacture and overseas manufacture in slurry seal machine and road patch equipment market facilitate to the efficiency of road construction and maintenance in a long term view.
According to the China Communication Department, the sale of road construction and maintenance equipment in 2004 has hit a ten-year record high for vehicle production. By 2005, the annual road construction and maintenance equipment production volume reached 2.9 million vehicles of which 1.1 million imported from overseas company. For the last two years, China’s total road construction and maintenance equipment output has been growing at roughly 36.5% over past year. By 2010 the quality and standard of road construction and maintenance equipment and key spare parts should be close to international standards.
China is a large market, and the need for road construction and maintenance equipment is expending vigorously, partly due to large investments in the country’s infrastructure. With China’s accession to the WTO, it will have a great impact on its road construction and maintenance equipment industry in terms of foreign competition in China. More and more foreign companies are exploring business opportunities in these areas.