August 20, 2007 -- China's machinery industry posted a total output value of 3,342.315 billion yuan (US$439.8 billion) in the first half of this year, and sales value of 3241.963 billion yuan, maintaining a steady growth of both production and sales. ccording to statistics from the China Machine-Building Industry Association, the 13 sectors of the industry registered two-digit growth in this period.

Sectors that reported more than 31 per cent growth in output value were engineering machinery, petrochemical general-purpose machinery, heavy-duty mining equipment, machine tools, electrics and electric appliances, basic machinery parts and auto production. Growth was 12.36 percentage points higher than the same period last year.

At the same time, the industry generated 651.51 billion yuan in output value from new products, rising 38.47 per cent year on year, 5.97 percentage points higher than the growth of the whole industry. Items presenting fast growth in production included the fork lifter with growth of 38.43 per cent, the concrete mixer growing 45.75 per cent, and cement production equipment growing 49 per cent. Production of power generating equipment still maintained rapid growth in the first half.

Automobile manufacturing also contributed a large part to the growth of the machine-building industry. China's auto production reached 4.58 million units in the first half of this year, rising 22.91 per cent year on year. Of this, output of cars was 2.424 million units, up 25.78 per cent; trucks, 1.277 million units, up 27.30 per cent; and highway buses, 876,000 units, up 10.18 per cent. An official with the association forecast that total import and export of the machine-building industry will reach about US$10 billion this year, rising about 25 per cent.

Source: Asia Pulse
Source: Factiva