Interview with Cai Weici, Executive Vice President of China Machinery Industry Federation

Reporter: How do you view the economic growth rate in the first half of the year?

Cai Weici: In the first half of the year, the growth rate of nearly 40% of the production and sales of the machinery industry was indeed high. The rapid growth in production and sales in the first half of the year was mainly attributable to the improvement of the macroeconomic situation at home and abroad, as well as the lower base figure of the same period last year. Although this year's government investment has decreased, but the demand for related industries has continued to stimulate the growth of the machinery industry; on the other hand, the price of raw materials related to the machinery industry in the first half of the year did not increase significantly, which also contributed to the profit of the machinery industry. increase.

Machinery industry and macro-economy are closely related to each other and influence each other. In the long run, the two trends are similar. Since February of this year, the growth rate of the output value of the machinery industry has been slowly falling and is expected to fall back to 20% by the end of the year. I think the 20% growth rate is sustainable and conducive to adjusting the health value of the structure. The high growth rate often means that the market demand is too strong, which will also hinder the industry's adjustment of the production structure. Looking forward to the trend of the year, I believe that the growth rate of the production and sales of the machinery industry will show a trend of high, low, and gradually stabilizing this year. The return from ultra-high growth to normal growth will help accelerate the pace of structural adjustment and the steady development of the industry.

Reporter: Since the beginning of this year, the "high-end manufacturing industry" has been frequently mentioned by the industry. What are the gaps between China's high-end equipment and foreign countries?

Cai Weici: We believe that high-end equipment manufacturing is the core of the high-end manufacturing industry. The national plan for the development of equipment manufacturing also implies the strategy of vigorously developing equipment manufacturing, especially high-end equipment.

In recent years, China's high-end equipment manufacturing industry has made significant progress, but it still has a big gap compared with foreign advanced levels. For example, in the electric power industry, despite the continuous innovation in the past two years, localization work on core equipment such as the AP1000 has not yet achieved a complete breakthrough. It is also because there is a certain gap, we will put high-end manufacturing as a key development industry.

In the high-end manufacturing industry, we must not only look at the high figures, but look at whether the industry is strong or not. In the proposal of the "12th Five-Year Plan" of the machinery industry, we proposed to increase the support for independent innovation of high-end equipment. The definition of "high-end equipment" should not be simply based on whether there is "intelligence" or not. It is recommended that key equipment urgently needed for key projects, high-tech difficulties, and heavy import dependence be included in "high-end equipment" to support it.

Reporter: How do you view the issue of the construction of the national grid?

Cai Weici: In recent years, the country’s electricity supply has undergone a tremendous change, and the issue of power cuts has been greatly improved. Under this background, the high growth rate of power supply construction will be difficult to continue. This year, the speed of power supply construction has already dropped to 7%. Due to lack of grid investment, this year's transformers, high-voltage switches and other high-voltage power transmission equipment due to excessive competition caused by price declines, which will not benefit the long-term development of equipment manufacturing companies. On the other hand, although China's power construction has reached a certain level, the rise of emerging technologies such as smart grids will provide new room for growth in our power equipment manufacturing.

The state should increase the scale of power grid investment, protect the backbone of the equipment manufacturing industry, speed up the examination and approval of power transmission and transformation projects, increase the scale of power grid construction, and restore the prices of relevant products to normal levels, so as to avoid backbone enterprises in the power transmission and transformation equipment manufacturing industry from becoming depressed.

Reporter: What do you think about the path of China's machinery industry during the post-financial crisis?

Cai Weici: China will enter the "12th Five-Year Plan" period next year, and the mechanical industry will still have more room for growth. We expect this year's industry-wide growth rate of production and sales to be around 20%. The “12th Five-Year Plan” period is a crucial period for the transformation and upgrading of various industries in our country, and the requirements of users for equipment will become more stringent. The requirements for various indicators including technology, energy consumption, and quality will be even higher. As an equipment manufacturing enterprise, more attention should be paid to the production of products with better quality and lower energy consumption. There are two main requirements, one is the improvement of innovation capabilities, and the other is the control of product quality. On the other hand, if we can provide users with products with better quality and lower energy consumption, it is equivalent to creating conditions for users' industrial upgrading.

Under the background of industrial upgrading and adjusting the structure, the growth rate of our machinery industry may slow down, and it may drop below 20%. However, if it is based on high quality and high efficiency, even if this growth rate will fall to 12% to 15%, it is still very gratifying.