Recently, Luo Dong, President of Volvo Construction Equipment China, noted in an interview with reporters in Shanghai that Chinese domestic construction machinery enterprises all want to go global, but if they wish to enter the booming developed countries in Europe and America, emissions remain an unavoidable threshold. 

Reporters from China Deep Foundation Engineering feel that Luo Dong's words really hit the nail on the head. For China's construction machinery to go global, especially to enter European and American countries, the issue of emission standards is indeed a difficult "hurdle" on the internationalization path of China's construction machinery.

There are essentially three ways for China's construction machinery to internationalize: first, product export; second, investing in building factories; and third, implementing mergers and acquisitions. In actual practice, product export and M&A are the two most common approaches. However, no matter which approach is adopted, emission standards are a hard indicator standing in the way, and they absolutely cannot be ignored. For a long time, the issue of emission standards has been a major focus and difficulty in China's construction machinery industry.

It is reported that on July 1, 2004, China began implementing the Stage II standards for non-road construction machinery, which are equivalent to the Euro II emission standards. And only recently has the Stage III standard been officially released, and it has not yet been widely popularized and implemented.

However, from an international perspective, the United States began implementing the Tier 4 transitional emission standards in 2013, and the European Union is also implementing the Euro IIIB emission standards, and both will implement the Tier 4 and Stage IV emission standards in 2014. It can be seen that there is still a considerable gap between China's emission standards and international levels. Without solving the emission standards issue, China's construction machinery may still manage to enter the markets of third-world and less-developed countries, but if it wants to enter the developed countries in Europe and America, whose products are stronger than ours and whose emission standards are far ahead of ours, it will be very difficult. Even in the markets of less-developed countries, we also face competition from developed countries, and without improvement we will not last long. Therefore, we must deeply understand the importance of emission standards and seriously address them.

At present, on the issue of emission standards, China needs to focus on resolving the following three constraints:

On the one hand, the first constraint on China's emission standards is a technical issue. Future construction machinery products must not only have reliable quality and advanced technology, but also be required to save energy and reduce emissions. In fact, energy saving and emission reduction itself is also a technical issue, so equipment technology needs to be upgraded. The key point of this upgrade is the engine. At present, most of the engines equipped in China's construction machinery come from imports, and even for domestically produced engines, their technical level is also constantly improving. Therefore, regarding emissions, technological breakthroughs are only a matter of time. The problem here is that the increase in product costs brought about by technological upgrading is more likely to become the next practical issue. Based on the current analysis of equipment usage, the technological upgrading of engines will lead to an increase in product prices of about 30%, and this increase will bring sales difficulties to enterprises because users find it hard to absorb it entirely. Under two-way pressure, the only solution is for manufacturers and users to each bear a portion; otherwise, leaning too far to either side will seriously affect the development of the industry.

On the other hand, from the perspective of fuel resources, the current quality of China's oil products can hardly meet the new emission requirements. Judging from the actual situation of China's oil products, taking heavy truck products as an example, on July 1, 2013, the twice-delayed National IV diesel emission standard finally began to be implemented. Beijing, Henan and other places began implementing the National IV diesel emission standard for heavy trucks, but at present oil products in most regions can only satisfy equipment meeting the National II emission standard. Whether such oil products can support National IV vehicles is worth pondering by industry insiders. Construction machinery equipment, which widely uses diesel, obviously cannot cope with the new emission standards, which requires us, in addition to product technology, to also take feasible and effective measures to solve the problem of oil product quality.

In addition, in the supervision of emission standards, the government still has the problem of inadequate performance of duties. From release to mandatory enforcement, emission standards ultimately depend on the government's supervisory power; otherwise, emission standards will become "flowers in a bottle." It actually took as long as 9 years for China's non-road construction machinery to develop from the Stage II standard to the Stage III standard. It can be seen that over such a long period, apart from direct issues such as product technology, there are obviously also problems in the promotion and supervision of emission standards. In implementing the Stage III standard, how to balance the interests of all parties and, while mandatorily promoting it, appropriately help enterprises and users get through the transition period will be content that cannot be ignored in promoting the implementation of emission standards. In this regard, the government and its supervisory departments should take action.

In short, emission standards are the direction of development. Not to mention the need to align with international standards as soon as possible, for our own sake we must also implement them sooner or later. Nowadays, urban smog is becoming increasingly serious, and experts point out that serious excessive emissions are one of the important causes. Therefore, the above three aspects not only urgently need to be advanced, but should also be carried out comprehensively, with none missing. Otherwise, China's construction machinery will be unable to smoothly achieve true internationalization because of this difficult "hurdle" of emission standards.

Editor: Wu Yue