It is not good for Chinese machinery manufacturing industry to promote mergers and acquisitions

Chinese companies have the ability to integrate the world's industrial chain, but foreign countries have set up barriers. Liang Xunyi, who was full of hopes a year ago and helped Chinese companies go abroad to overseas acquisitions, has now lived up to home days. In 2011, two mergers and acquisitions overseas. Seeing that it will succeed, it was rejected at the last minute. "The reason is nothing more than to affect (their) national security."

When this matter was raised, Liang Xunyi felt helpless. Liang Xunyi is the Honorary Chairman of the China Machine Tool Industry Association and an active advocate of Chinese companies' overseas acquisitions. He has participated in many overseas acquisitions of Chinese machine tool companies, including the first Beijing Machine Tool Plant to acquire Germany's Wadrich Coburg Company.

Now, he has shifted more of his work to the country. As a senior expert in the machine tool industry, Liang Xunyi believes that with the deterioration of the international competitive environment and the improvement of technical barriers to Chinese companies in Europe and the United States, China's machine tool industry should strive hard to improve its strength, and change from strong to professional. Deepen the direction of efforts to achieve industrial upgrading.

Liang Xunyu said that it seems that domestic and foreign companies each account for 50% of China's machine tool market, but the 50% share of developed countries and Taiwan is in the high-end market, especially in the high-end. In the medium and high-end markets, there is still a large gap between domestic companies and foreign countries in terms of product technology, precision and function, and the task of competition and countermeasures is arduous.

After the acquisition of non-good agents in 2012 Lunar New Year, news of Sany Heavy Industry's acquisition of concrete machinery manufacturer Putzmeister boosted the industry. This is a larger amount of mergers and acquisitions in China's machinery manufacturing industry after Zoomlion completed the Italian CIFA merger in 2008.

Immediately afterwards, it was reported that Xugong Machinery will acquire the second-largest concrete machinery company in the world, German Schwing Company.

Compared to the Chinese construction machinery industry, which is eager to ride in overseas markets, the machine tool industry has experienced “cold flow” in overseas mergers and acquisitions, and its barriers have been increasing.

As the first “crab” person in the machine tool industry, Qinchuan Machine Tool Plant won 60% of the equity of American ABM broaching company in 2001. Three years later, Qinchuan Machine Tool Plant obtained a 100% stake in broaching.

Later, the Chinese machine tool companies began to try to go out on a large scale. To date, the machine tool industry has completed more than a dozen overseas acquisitions, including Shenyang Machine Tool's acquisition of Germany's Heath, Dalian Machine Tool's acquisition of Ingersoll, and Shanghai Mingjing Machine Tool's acquisition of Germany. The Warrenberg company.

This kind of good situation seems difficult to reproduce. "Chinese companies have the ability to integrate the world's industrial chain, but foreign countries have set up barriers." Guan Xiyou, chairman of Shenyang Machine Tool, told the "Financial Weekly" reporter.

“The machine tool industry structure is upgrading very fast. The customer needs are high in product level and rich in product categories. In this market, Chinese enterprise manufacturing and the world's strongest players are in competition, and market share is decreasing.”

The reason is still a certain gap in the level of technology.

In the eyes of many, mergers and acquisitions have become a good medicine for the Chinese machinery industry to make up for technical shortcomings and go out to participate in international competition. This idea, in the case of Shenyang Machine Tools, which has already tried M&A, seems to be idealized.

"Originally I thought that I could buy the technology and I didn't know what was going on until I bought it.

"Guan Xiyou said," It's like looking for a wife to live, just looking at someone's parents to be beautiful. When you go home, you have to live together. In the eyes of Guan Xiyou, the acquisition of foreign high-quality companies is more likely to obtain the other's brand and international channels.

With the intensification of barriers, the uncertainty in the future mergers and acquisitions will make it impossible for the domestic machinery industry to bet on mergers and acquisitions.

"Inadequate high-end, excess production capacity of low-end products" is a common problem faced by China's machinery industry. If mergers and acquisitions cannot achieve the goal of upgrading technology and achieving transformation, they will only be able to turn their attention to internal strength.

Big but not strong According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2011 the total industrial output value of the machinery industry was 16.89 trillion yuan, an increase of 25.06% year-on-year. Since March 2011, the monthly output value of the machinery industry has exceeded 1.3 trillion yuan for 10 consecutive months, including 1.66 trillion yuan in December, a record high.

Cai Weici, executive vice president of the China Federation of Machinery Industry, said that in the field of machinery industry, Britain, Germany, and Japan are in the first phalanx, and China has already leapt to the second phalanx. "Not only has it had a relatively high status in the world." And with Denmark, Belgium and other lengths.

However, "the advantages of China's machinery industry have been concentrated on a wide range of products, which are manifested in the medium and low-end products that are more versatile." Cai Weici said that in the high-end equipment, the Chinese machinery industry and the world's first phalanx still exist difference.

This is evident from the import and export data of China's machinery industry.

According to Cai Weici, in 2011, the total import and export volume of China's machinery industry reached US$600 billion. The trade surplus was 12.4 billion U.S. dollars, mainly reflected in low-end products and processing trade products (processing trade products have a surplus of more than 50 billion U.S. dollars).

The “Financial National Weekly” reporter learned that China’s high-end machine tools, high-end bearings, and hydraulic parts all rely heavily on imports. Lack of high-end equipment products, large and not strong situation has seriously hampered the development of China's machinery industry.

In the years when the development momentum of Chinese construction machinery has been on the rise, there have been two cases in which Chinese construction machinery companies have been raising prices with each other in order to obtain key parts and components—finally paying nearly twice the original price for manufacturers. Enjoy it. This is the lack of key components, but it is mastered by technology manufacturers to contain the scene.

According to industry insiders, similar incidents have occurred repeatedly. Some key component manufacturers even deliberately delay time, affecting the shipment of Chinese companies.

In recent years, the changes in the industrial environment have forced the machinery industry to face the pressure of “previous hindrance”.

Wang Ruixiang, President of China Federation of Machinery Industry, stated that the current world economic recovery process is arduous and weak. The advanced economies such as the United States, Europe and Japan are implementing “reindustrialization” with advanced manufacturing as the core, and the international market is also facing positive competition. The direction of high-end development; emerging economies are accelerating the development of industries and technologies with comparative advantages, which makes it more difficult for China's machinery industry to have comparative advantages in expanding exports of low-end products.

"The lack of discourse power and bargaining power has made it difficult for China's machinery industry to upgrade its position in the international industrial division of labor." He said that at home, the machinery industry also faces many difficulties: the total demand for machinery products has slowed down, but the equipment The level of products and quality requirements increase; the internationalization trend of the domestic market is obvious, and it is urgent to increase the core competitiveness of the industry; the pressure of rising costs increases, the profit margin of the industry is squeezed; the constraints of resources and the environment tend to strengthen, and the extensive development model is difficult to sustain.

Under pressure, the "12th Five-Year Plan" and other series of policies have become the key to boosting the development of China's machinery industry. According to the report of the China Machinery Industry Federation, high-end equipment manufacturing and new energy vehicles as strategically emerging industries supported by the country's “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” will further stimulate the industrial restructuring of the machinery industry and promote the upgrading of product structure. The guidance of the Central Economic Work Conference on the development of the real economy is also conducive to the future development of the machinery industry, especially the small and medium-sized enterprises.

Under the guidance of the country’s policy of advocating industrial upgrading, people in the industry are more inclined to strengthen control over more basic aspects.

Cai Weici explained to the "Financial State Weekly" that China's high-end equipment has developed passively, to a certain extent because of its inability to autonomy, and the focus is on the "three bases" of Chinese machinery: basic parts, basic processes and basic materials.

“The gap between a product we produce and foreign countries reflects not only the pros and cons of a product, but the comparison of the entire country’s level of technology. Compared to the coal and petroleum industries, the industrial chain of the machinery industry is much longer. If such an industry chain with complex supporting procedures and complete sets of industries has gaps in each link, it will finally be reflected in the gap in product performance and efficiency."

“Without a good foundation, how can we achieve breakthroughs in the research and development of high-end products?” An old expert, who is not willing to be named, told the “Financial State Weekly” reporter that for basic industries to develop, they need to start from systems, mechanisms, and R&D. Solve existing problems in many ways.

"The difference between the "three bases" of the machinery industry is not entirely a product issue, including the weakness of physics and fluid mechanics," said the expert.

Facing the machinery industry with weak basic industries after “front blocking”, how can we find a good solution to the problem and reverse the reality?

“The enterprise itself does not have the ability to integrate basic research and applied research. I think what the country should do is help create a collaborative innovation alliance and do things that companies cannot do.” Guan Xiyou suggested to the “Financial National Weekly” that “For example, The country has established such projects as 'big planes', introduced policies, mobilized related resources, and mobilized cross-industry companies including basic materials, electronic materials, information, computers, and tools."

In the view of the above-mentioned old experts, this is an urgent solution to the problem, and the creation of a long-term independent innovation environment requires more joint efforts.

"This approach to a specific product, or a short period of time can solve the problem. But it involves the country itself, the plan is over-colored, it is difficult to continue in a market economy environment." The expert said, from the perspective of the market Collaborative innovation between companies and research institutes ultimately needs to rely on the quality of the company itself and the leading position in the market economy as the link to connect.

"Like GE, there are tens of thousands of companies supporting GE, and the cooperation between them is solid. This is based on the understanding of mutual quality in multi-year cooperation, relying on the reputation, quality, progress and price of delivery, The market is the link. This is the direction that Chinese companies need to work hard.”

This expert believes that although the national competent authorities have realized the problem, they are still constrained by the limitations of the system and mechanism.

“National Ministries of Science and Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission and other ministries and commissions have invested a lot every year, but because the ministries and commissions have their own supporting institutions and projects, the result is that 'no less research and development costs are dispersed' and “real development is needed”. Projects supported by funds cannot get any money.” This requires the relevant departments that formulate policies to find out outstanding issues and key issues and reduce the waste of resources, manpower, and funds. The key to solving problems also includes the regulation of market environment, protection of innovation, and crackdown on imitations. , 'To achieve high quality can have better prices'."