On March 10, the centralized departure ceremony for the export of used construction equipment from the Changsha Area of the China (Hunan) Pilot Free Trade Zone was held at Sunward Industrial City. A total of 216 used construction equipment units set off from the industrial city for export to dozens of countries and regions, including several used rotary drilling rigs and excavators from Sunward.

The used construction machinery exported this time has a total value of 317 million yuan. The equipment will be shipped successively from ports including Shanghai, Taicang, Tianjin, Qinzhou and Nansha, and sold to dozens of countries and regions such as Southeast Asia, Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Europe and the United States. The event attracted more than 20 enterprises, including original equipment manufacturers and traders, to participate, and will contribute the "Hunan brand" and "Hunan strength" to the vigorous development of the global used construction machinery market and the economic construction of the relevant countries.

Sunward's equipment this time mainly consists of used rotary drilling rigs and excavators, with a cargo value of about 15 million yuan, mainly exported to Africa and Southeast Asia. Peng Ying, Brand Management Director of Sunward, introduced that the company has established a dedicated remanufacturing plant for used equipment, where equipment is refurbished and reconditioned before being provided to Belt and Road countries at better cost-effectiveness.

It is reported that the performance of refurbished and reconditioned used construction machinery reaches 70% to 90% of that of new machines, while the price is only 30% to 40% of new machines, which makes the used construction equipment of the Changsha Area highly competitive in the international market.

At present, China's export of used construction machinery generally faces problems such as the lack of evaluation standards, unclear tax rules and difficulties in industry financing, which have obstructed the channels for domestic used equipment to reach overseas markets. Promoting the export of used construction machinery is of great significance for advancing the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, boosting Chinese brands' "going global" and opening up new tracks for economic development.

The Changsha Area of the Free Trade Zone is the only region in the world with four construction equipment manufacturing enterprises selected for the world's top 50 list. Its total scale has ranked first in the country for 11 consecutive years, and in 2022 its sales accounted for 14.35% of the top 50, exceeding the combined total of the other seven selected domestic enterprises. The reform of used construction machinery exports has become a key institutional innovation topic for the Changsha Area of the Free Trade Zone.

In the earlier stage, the Changsha Area of the Free Trade Zone, through a series of measures such as conducting trial orders, establishing an industry alliance and formulating a standards system, explored solutions to difficult and bottleneck issues such as evaluation and pricing standards, tax management and customs clearance facilitation, and achieved phased results.

From October to December last year, the Changsha Area exported used construction machinery worth 178 million yuan to 15 countries including India, Vietnam and Uzbekistan. This year, based on the actual demands of enterprises, nearly 20 additional enterprises have gathered in the Changsha Area to carry out trial order business for used equipment exports.

"The Changsha Area of the Free Trade Zone will focus on the development needs of the industry and the demands of market entities, adhere to the working approach of 'building platforms, optimizing processes, establishing systems and setting standards', and strive to resolve key pain points such as unclear tariff codes, lack of standards and out-of-region account cancellation for used construction machinery exports," said Tan Haoran, Deputy Secretary of the Party Working Committee and Director of the Management Committee of the Changsha Area of the Free Trade Zone.

Next, the Changsha Area of the Free Trade Zone will, by building a process-based public service platform, a clustered used equipment trading center and a large-scale remanufacturing export base, strive to build Hunan into a globally renowned and nationally leading distribution center for the construction machinery aftermarket industry, gradually realize the strategic goal of building used construction machinery exports into a 100-billion-yuan industry, and contribute "Changsha experience" to the export of used construction machinery across the country.