In 2013, the total output value of China's construction industry grew 16.1% year-on-year, the lowest growth rate since 2003.

On January 20, the National Bureau of Statistics released the 2013 national economic performance data. The data show that last year the national construction industry's total output value was 15,931.3 billion yuan, up 16.1% year-on-year; the national construction area of buildings under construction was 11.3 billion square meters, up 14.6% year-on-year. Data show that the growth rates of these two indicators continued to slow compared with 2012. After China's construction industry achieved a growth rate of over 20% in 2003, it maintained rapid growth for many years, but began to decline in 2012, and the growth rate hit a new low in 2013.

This situation in the national construction industry makes the author think not only of the closely related construction machinery industry, especially the pile machinery industry. After China's construction industry achieved a growth rate of over 20% in 2003, it maintained rapid growth for many years, but began to decline in 2012, and the growth rate hit a new low in 2013. The development course of China's construction industry over these 10 full years is so similar to the development of construction machinery, especially pile machinery. If construction machinery, in addition to construction machinery, also includes agricultural, mining, environmental protection and many other machines, and the construction industry's impact on it is not 100%, then pile machinery is basically an industry relying on construction projects.

The development of the construction industry depends entirely on investment demand, one of the "three drivers" of national economic development. In 2013, national fixed asset investment, excluding rural households, was 43,652.8 billion yuan, a nominal increase of 19.6% over the previous year (an actual increase of 19.2% after deducting price factors). This was also the first time since 2003 that the annual nominal growth rate of fixed asset investment fell below 20%. The slowdown in investment in these two years and the continuous decline in investment growth have made the construction industry sluggish. The pile machinery industry also develops by relying on investment growth; therefore, the sluggishness of the construction industry has also led to a downturn in the pile machinery industry used in construction projects.

The synchronous slowdown in the construction industry's development speed and fixed asset investment growth has brought adverse effects on the construction industry. Fixed asset investment projects are mainly "railway, highway and infrastructure" projects. Taking railway projects as an example, affected by factors such as the relatively slow implementation of construction funds, the pace of railway engineering construction slowed last year. Although construction progress accelerated somewhat in the third and fourth quarters, the actual progress of many projects still lagged behind the planned schedule, and the construction cycles of many expressways, airports and other projects were also longer than in previous years, all of which affected the development speed of the construction industry. In addition, the same is true of urban infrastructure construction: there is also a lack of synchronization between project plans and fund implementation, causing the three major construction areas of "railway, highway and infrastructure"—railways, highways and urban infrastructure—to fall short of expectations. Coupled with the tightened economic situation in the country, this led the national construction industry's total output value to record the lowest growth rate in 10 years.

The same is true of the pile machinery industry. After 10 consecutive years of rapid development, it entered a downturn in the second half of 2011, and in 2012, along with the slowdown in the construction industry, it also hit a trough. After experiencing consecutive "negative growth," sales clearly rebounded starting in the first quarter of 2013. However, compared with the same period in 2011, they were basically flat, still constituting recovery growth. In the third quarter, sales fell by about 33% quarter-on-quarter from the second quarter and were basically flat year-on-year compared with 2012. After rotary drilling rigs entered annual sales of 2,000 units, the market pull weakened, showing the limited nature of market capacity.

It can be seen that the construction industry and the pile machinery industry are two industries as close as lips and teeth. The relative sluggishness of the construction industry in 2013 is truly a real microcosm of the pile machinery industry. Therefore, in the face of the new situation of the country seeking progress while maintaining stability, deepening reform, and implementing structural adjustment and mode transformation, as the construction industry and construction enterprises become more rational and focus on improving development quality, the pile machinery industry and its enterprises must also accelerate the pace of transformation and upgrading so that the two major industries can advance with the times together.

Editor: Wu Yue