The continued acceleration of urbanization has created golden opportunities for Zoomlion, which is strongly advancing its environmental industry and holds a leading position in the solid waste treatment sector, ushering in a new round of industrial takeoff.

 

    Following the Central Urbanization Work Conference, local Two Sessions meetings held recently have also made urbanization a focus of attention. Zhou Hongchun, a researcher at the Social Development Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said that urbanization is one of the most important potentials for China's future economic growth, and the purpose of new-type urbanization is to improve people's quality of life, thus requiring greater infrastructure upgrading and urban construction.

 

    Market data show that with rapid economic development and accelerating urbanization, China generates up to 250 million tons of waste each year. While large amounts of household waste place great pressure on the urban environment and development, they also contain enormous resource potential and economic benefits; in particular, related development to "turn waste into treasure" will receive increasing attention. In the coming years, market demand for urban household waste collection and transport equipment and kitchen waste treatment equipment will grow significantly, and the solid waste treatment industry will be a major beneficiary of urbanization.

 

    As an urban environment expert, Zoomlion has in recent years been committed to the R&D and production of solid waste treatment products and has achieved notable results. In 2013, Zoomlion launched China's first "series of leak-free compression garbage trucks" and successfully achieved sales. This product solves the worldwide problem of sewage leakage during garbage collection and transport and is called an ideal cleaning and transport tool for raising urban sanitation standards.

 

    In kitchen waste treatment, Zoomlion has gone a step further and achieved the conversion of waste into treasure. As early as 2008, in response to the enormous pressure that household waste places on the urban environment, Zoomlion established the "Kitchen Waste Resource Utilization" project team. Through continuous technical research, it developed an internationally advanced kitchen waste harmless, reduction, and resource utilization system with independent intellectual property rights and successfully won bids for kitchen waste treatment plant construction projects in Changsha, Zhangjiagang, Chengdu, Taiyuan, and other cities. Among them, the Changsha kitchen waste treatment plant can process more than 300 tons of kitchen waste per day; this plant can produce more than 5,400 tons of biodiesel annually, generate 19.71 million kWh of electricity, save 6,900 tons of standard coal annually, and reduce carbon emissions by 19,500 tons annually.

 

    During the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, investment in China's solid waste treatment industry reached 800 billion yuan, and total investment in the construction of harmless treatment facilities for urban household waste nationwide was about 270 billion yuan. Based on such broad market space, in 2014 Zoomlion continued to strengthen its leading position in the solid waste treatment field.

 

    On February 10, Zoomlion's carefully built Lugu Second Industrial Park officially completed relocation and put into production. The industrial park is the country's largest and most advanced R&D and production base for sanitation and environmental protection equipment. It is mainly used for the R&D and production of environmental industry products in nine major categories and nearly 100 varieties, including sanitation machinery, kitchen waste treatment, and high-concentration wastewater treatment. It will form a production capacity of more than 10,000 sets of various types of sanitation machinery and equipment, and the industrial park's future output value can exceed 10 billion yuan.

 

    The industrial park is also a concrete manifestation of Zoomlion's strong push into the environmental industry. In the just-passed 2013, facing a severe market situation in the construction machinery industry, Zoomlion actively transformed and sought new market development space, moving from focusing solely on the construction machinery segment to advancing five major segments in parallel: construction machinery, agricultural machinery, environmental industry, heavy trucks, and finance.

 

    Chen Peiliang, vice president of Zoomlion and general manager of the Environmental Industry Company, said that the Lugu Second Industrial Park has enabled Zoomlion's Environmental Industry Company to firmly occupy the top position in the domestic environmental industry, and the environmental industry will become another major business highlight of the company after the construction machinery industry.

 

    At the end of last year, Zhuang Guotai, director of the Department of Nature and Ecology Conservation of China's Ministry of Environmental Protection, also said that future investment in environmental governance "may reach a scale of hundreds of billions of yuan." The frequent haze weather in many parts of China has further highlighted the urgency and importance of developing the environmental industry.

 

    Zoomlion, determined to vigorously develop the environmental industry, is undoubtedly on the right development path, and this also provides a reference sample for the construction machinery industry in transition.