Is China a strong country in the hydraulic industry?

The hydraulic system consists of five parts: power components such as hydraulic pumps, execution components such as hydraulic cylinders and motors, control components such as hydraulic valves and valve blocks, auxiliary components such as oil tanks, filters, accumulators, heat exchangers, and working media such as mineral oil, emulsions, and hydraulic oil. Hydraulic system products have high added value and high technical difficulty, and are the core components of manufacturing systems. The market size of the hydraulic industry is highly correlated with a country's total economic output and industrialization level, and plays a crucial role in the regional mechanical and equipment manufacturing industries. It is a very important basic research field.
Regarding data statistics, the United States, China, Japan, Europe, and the Commonwealth of Independent States are the main markets for global hydraulic sales, with the United States accounting for 38.0% and China accounting for 30.2%. According to research predictions from relevant institutions, the global market is expected to reach 290.4 billion yuan by 2025. Currently, China's manufacturing industry is in a stage of rapid development and transformation from a manufacturing powerhouse to a manufacturing powerhouse. Due to the low level of basic research on hydraulic products, especially hydraulic components, it seriously hinders the improvement of core technology in the manufacturing industry, restricts the development of China's manufacturing industry, and affects the achievement of China's goal of becoming a manufacturing powerhouse.
2) Development status of hydraulic components in China
In the 1950s, China's hydraulic industry entered its initial stage. After the 1960s, the application of hydraulic technology in China gradually extended from machine tools to agricultural machinery and engineering machinery. The hydraulic workshops that were originally attached to the main engine factory operated independently and became specialized hydraulic component manufacturers. The industry entered a stage of rapid growth in specialized production systems. In the 1980s, under the guidance of national reform and opening up policies, the hydraulic industry received strong support in planning, investment, technology introduction, and scientific research and development, thus entering a period of rapid development.
Since the 21st century, the country has actively introduced policies to promote the development of the industry and increased efforts in technological transformation, leading the industry into a mature development stage
In recent years, the improvement of China's macro-economy and the expansion of fixed assets investment have accelerated the development of engineering machinery, energy metallurgical equipment, mining machinery, agricultural and forestry machinery and other host industries. The market size of hydraulic components has also expanded year-on-year, and China's hydraulic industry can be called a "hydraulic power" in terms of scale and quantity. But "hydraulic power" does not mean "hydraulic power". There are over a thousand hydraulic component production enterprises in our country, with generally small production scales. The product technology sources are mostly imported products from earlier years, and they do not have complete intellectual property rights. Hydraulic enterprises compete fiercely in the domestic market, competing for low prices with each other, and have not yet formed a joint force, let alone being unable to compete with foreign hydraulic manufacturers.
Therefore, the development level of high-end hydraulic products in China has always been relatively low, and they have been monopolized by foreign companies for a long time, resulting in the main engine industry being constrained in important basic components and even affecting the healthy development of the manufacturing industry.
Looking at the world, developed countries benefit from their excellent hydraulic industry system and advanced manufacturing technology, and hydraulic components are generally superior to domestic products in design, performance, quality, and other aspects. As a result, especially in the situation where host manufacturers are forced to rely on imported hydraulic components for a long time, it has caused many inconveniences to their own development and even become a constraint on the development of host manufacturers

In recent years, with the gradual expansion of the application field in the hydraulic industry, relevant national departments have successively introduced relevant policies to promote and regulate the development of the hydraulic industry. At present, China's domestically produced hydraulic components have gradually developed from basic and low-end components with low technological content to a stage of competition with foreign high-end brands in certain fields, breaking the unfavorable situation of relying heavily on imports for high-end components. Under the guidance of the "Intelligent Manufacturing" outlined in the 14th Five Year Plan, major industrial clusters of hydraulic components in China have introduced relevant policies to support and promote the hydraulic industry towards intelligence and high-end development. Furthermore, we will enhance the independent research and development capabilities of China's hydraulic industry, continuously tackle core technologies of hydraulic components, and achieve industrial independence and autonomy.
3) Industry development trends and market demand
① Transformation and upgrading of manufacturing industry, technology aggregation, and promotion of industrial structure optimization
In recent years, China has successively introduced relevant policies and measures, starting from the strengthening of core basic components and combining with the promotion of new process technologies and materials, committed to improving the quality of supporting components and raw materials for hydraulic components, inspection and testing, testing and evaluation, and standard research in the complete industrial chain. The high-end hydraulic components industry in China is expected to usher in opportunities for rapid and healthy development. During this period, we will fully utilize various industry resources, upgrade manufacturing bottlenecks, further optimize the structure of hydraulic products, and accelerate the innovation and industrialization process of high-end hydraulic components.
② The development of downstream industries is strongly gathering, and the market demand is personalized and diversified
As a universal basic component in the manufacturing industry, hydraulic products are widely distributed in downstream industries. With the continuous upgrading of hydraulic component processing technology, their application scope is also expanding. Looking back, hydraulic products have gone from being used only in the machine tool industry to engineering machinery, and now almost all manufacturing industries. The downstream industries of hydraulic products in China mainly include engineering machinery, automobiles, heavy-duty machinery, machine tools, etc. Data shows that mobile hydraulic engineering machinery, which accounts for 46% of domestic hydraulic product sales, is the main downstream industry in the hydraulic industry.
③ Industry greening and product digitization
The upgrading and transformation of downstream industry technology, as well as the increasingly perfect environmental protection laws and regulations, require hydraulic components to develop towards intelligence, energy conservation, and greenness, especially towards high efficiency, high power density, low noise, low vibration, zero leakage, as well as anti pollution control and multi base media to meet environmental protection requirements.

④ Coordinated development, march towards the era of "Industry 4.0" and "Internet plus"
China's world leading Internet technology has laid a solid foundation for "Industry 4.0" and "Internet plus" in the hydraulic industry. The key of "Industry 4.0" and "Internet plus" in the hydraulic industry is to realize the overall automatic control of the host equipment through the control of each hydraulic component. With the promotion of 5G communication technology in the future, communication addresses can be directly set in components such as hydraulic pumps, motors, cylinders, and valves, greatly reducing control response time and making host products more real-time. At the same time, the host equipment is equipped with a large amount of real-time operation to quickly store and calculate big data, and to record the working condition and performance status of hydraulic components in detail, such as fault accumulation analysis and data collection, providing strong data support for continuously improving product design.
⑤ Multiple measures to enhance reliability and lay a solid foundation for import substitution
The development of efficient, high standard, and high reliability system integration is the goal of hydraulic components. Due to poor reliability and low service life of hydraulic products in China, host manufacturers and end users have long been hesitant and unwilling to use domestic hydraulic brands, resulting in long-term dependence on imports for hydraulic products.