The Country's Top Machine Makers Are Looking to Expand Outside Their Borders

While the market is still booming in China, the country’s top machine makers are looking to expand outside their borders. And they’re interested in more than just exports. In countries like Brazil, India and Russia, Chinese manufacturers see an opportunity to open new manufacturing operations, grab market share and try their hand at globalizing. The advantages for those who manufacture in China are clear. Customers in developing markets are price conscious and Chinese manufacturers can offer machines at prices that often undercut their international rivals. Markets like India, however, have started to resist the inflow of machines from China, going so far as to impose anti-dumping tariffs against Chinese-made presses in 2009. As a consequence, the past two years have seen an increasing number of Chinese-led joint ventures, acquisitions and manufacturing facilities around the world. Haitian, for example, opened a manufacturing plant in Vietnam earlier this year. Hong Kong-based Cosmos Machinery Ltd. Entered into a joint venture with the Indian press maker Jishu-Hozen Machines Pvt. Ltd. Last year. “India is a big market and growing quickly, ” said Jason Chan, manager in Cosmos Machinery Ltd. ’s marketing department. “We’ve just started there, but it’s a great opportunity. ” Chan spoke at the Asian-Pacific International Plastics and Rubber Exhibition, held Sept. 6-9 in Shanghai. While Cosmos is still growing move than 15 percent a year with domestic sales taking the lion’s share of their business, exports are an increasingly important part of their strategy. “South America, South East Asia, India--these are all big markets that it makes sense to enter, ” Chan said. “The competition in these markets is not as tough as competition in China. ” Zhao Jian, chief marketing officer at the Chinese company Yizumi, also had expansion on his mind at APPLAS. Earlier this year, Yizumi purchased the intellectual property of the U. S. -headquartered company HPM. With only 15 percent of the company’s sales come from export, Zhao said, with most exports going to South East Asia. The purchase of HPM is intended to be a further step into international markets. “This has a lot of value for us, ” said Zhao. “We can take the HPM name and make it international. ” According to Zhao, this is only the first step for the company. Yizumi is waiting for approval to list on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. If successful, some of the money from the IPO would be used to invest in establishing a presence abroad, Zhao said. The company is considering India, Russia and Brazil as potential locations for a new manufacturing facility. “If we don’t get the approval for the IPO, we’ll still make the investment, ” Zhao added. The value of having a manufacturing operation on the ground, Zhao said, is the ability to understand and respond to a market outside of China. “We don’t want to just feed them what we already have, ” he explained. “We want to go [to a region] and better understand their tastes. ” Building an international presence can provide a boost in growth and added stability, said Richard Chen, the sales director of Demag Plastics Machinery (Ningbo) Co Ltd. Although the China-based manufacturer is part of the international Demag Plastics Group, building exports has been a priority. “Our target is to increase exports to 30 percent of our business, ” said Chen. “We want to have two legs, one in domestic, one in export. ” Source: Plasticsnews. Com