Posted on 27 May 2024
Total sales of Chinese excavators to both domestic and overseas buyers this month are likely to rise by 5% on year to reach 16,200 units, according to the latest forecast released by Beijing-based industry magazine Construction Machinery and Equipment (CME) on Thursday.
Driving the growth is likely to be the significant on-year rise for domestic sales of excavators this month to reach 7,700 units, higher by 19% on year, the CME release showed, while the volume for export is expected to fall by 17% on year to 8,500 units.
However, though the predicted on-year rise for this month is healthy, the volume is much lower compared with the total sales of 18,822 units for April, Mysteel Global noted.
For the first five months of this year, the country's total excavator sales inside and outside China are predicted to fall by 9% compared with January-May last year, among which domestic sales are likely to dip by 0.5% on year, while export sales may drop by 16% from one year earlier, according to CME.
The persistent weakness in China's property market, the major domestic end-use sector for excavators, is dampening domestic demand for the earthmoving machines, CME observed.
The country's property sales still need more time to recover, the association notes, with the new measures announced by China's central government recently for the real estate sector being mainly aimed at ensuring timely deliveries of presold homes and to reduce inventory.
The effect of Beijing's measures may be seen in the growth of the total area of starts on new properties in the coming term, while excavators are mostly used in the early stages of real estate construction projects, sources explained, where domestic sales of equipment are largely dependent on the vitality of the country's property-project starts.
Over January-April, investment in China's property market registered Yuan 3.09 trillion ($427 billion), sliding by 9.8% on year, as against the on-year decrease of 9.5% for the first quarter of this year, as reported. The total area of newly-launched property projects also dropped by 24.6% on year to 235.1 million sq m.
Source:Mysteel Global
