China's Lifting EquipmentExports in 2025: Data Insights and Trend Analysis
In2025, against the backdrop of diverging global infrastructure demandand industrial upgrading, China's lifting equipment exports willexhibit a development characterized by "structural growthcoexisting with periodic challenges." Judging from segmenteddata, regional market performance, and companies' overseas expansionpractices, lifting equipment exports have shifted from scaleexpansion to a focus on both quality and resilience, becoming a keysupport for China's global construction machinery market.
In2025, China's lifting equipment exports will show a trend of"slightly declining total volume and optimizing structure,"with significant differences in performance across differentsegments. According to statistics from the China ConstructionMachinery Industry Association, from January to July, China exporteda total of 5,355 truck cranes, a slight year-on-year decrease of0.11%. However, exports in July alone reached 685 units, ayear-on-year increase of 12.5%, demonstrating a strong month-on-monthrecovery. This trend mirrors the overall industry growth. FromJanuary to August, the construction machinery industry's exportsreached US$38.597 billion, an 11.4% year-on-year increase. Cranes, asa core category, contributed approximately 15% of this export growth.
Exportdata from leading companies better reflects the true vitality of theindustry. Liugong's semi-annual report shows that its emergingsegments, such as cranes, achieved over 40% sales growth in the firsthalf of 2025. Overseas revenue reached 8.523 billion yuan, accountingfor 46.88% of total revenue. Cranes saw growth exceeding 80% in SouthAsia and the Middle East. Shandong, a core region for constructionmachinery exports, saw exports of construction machinery and partsreach 12 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2025, a year-on-yearincrease of over 15%. Cranes, as a key product, significantly drovethis growth.
Amongthe subcategories, small cranes performed particularly well. ChinaReport Hall forecasts that China's exports of small cranes willincrease by 18% year-on-year in 2025. The penetration rate ofportable cranes in the European and American markets will increase by5 percentage points compared to 2024, becoming a new engine forexport growth. Large crawler cranes, while accounting for less than10% of total exports, contribute over 30% of total crane exports,with an average price of over 5 million yuan per unit. This indicatesthat the upgrading to high-end cranes is beginning to yield positiveresults.
II.Market Structure: Emerging Markets Drive Growth, Developed MarketsFace Obstacles
In2025, the regional landscape of crane exports will show an"East-West" divergence, with emerging markets becoming themain growth drivers, while developed markets face growth pressure dueto trade barriers.
Countriesalong the Belt and Road Initiative continue to play a key role indriving growth. Liugong's crane sales growth in key regions such asSouth Asia, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Indonesia is among thehighest, reaching over 80%. Its electric wide-body trucks and othersupporting crane equipment have achieved mass delivery in Indonesianmining projects and have successfully expanded into the LatinAmerican market. Accelerating urbanization in Southeast Asia has ledto strong demand for truck cranes. From January to July, China'sexports of truck cranes to Vietnam and Thailand increased by 19% and22% year-on-year, respectively. In the Middle East, crawler craneexports surged by 27% year-on-year due to rising energyinfrastructure investment.
Developedcountries face severe challenges from trade barriers. In January2025, the European Union issued a final anti-dumping ruling onChinese mobile lifting platforms, affecting several lifting-relatedcategories, including CN code ex84271010. Companies such as HunanXingbang Intelligent were subject to anti-dumping duties of up to54.9%, while a few companies, such as Zhejiang Dingli, received alower rate of 20.6%. This policy directly led to a 12% year-on-yeardecline in China's exports of lifting equipment to the EU fromJanuary to July, with exports of mobile lifting platforms plummetingby 35%. While the US market has not imposed any new traderestrictions, the continued tightening of equipment safetycertification requirements has resulted in export clearance timesextending to 45 days, 15 days longer than in 2024. III. Core DrivingForce: Synergistic Efforts from Demand, Technology, and Layout
Thestructural growth in lifting equipment exports stems from the synergyof global demand, technological breakthroughs, and corporateglobalization.
Regionaldifferentiation in global infrastructure demand createsdifferentiated driving forces. Transportation connectivity projectsin Southeast Asia, oil and gas field development in the Middle East,and mineral mining projects in Africa all generate rigid demand formedium and large lifting equipment. For example, at a copper minedevelopment project in Central Asia, Liugong's 250-ton crawler crane,with its customized design adapted to high-altitude environments,successfully replaced equipment from a European or American brand,achieving mass export. Furthermore, the global equipment replacementcycle and stricter environmental protection policies are driving thereplacement of older lifting equipment sold between 2018 and 2021,creating opportunities for the export of new, energy-saving products.
Technologicalupgrades and product innovation are enhancing core competitiveness.Leading companies continue to increase their R&D investment. Inthe first half of the year, Liugong received 27 patents, 12 of whichrelated to intelligent upgrades for lifting equipment. Itsindependently developed remote control system has increased craneoperating efficiency by 20%. New energy products are acceleratingtheir commercialization. The share of electric cranes in Europeanmunicipal engineering applications is expected to increase from 3% in2024 to 8% in 2025. While still small, this sector has already openedup a niche in the high-end market. Small cranes, leveraging theirlightweight design and cost advantages, are rapidly penetrating thesmall engineering sector in Europe and the United States.
Adeepening global presence is building competitive barriers. Companiesare shifting from single-product exports to a "localizedproduction + localized service" model. Liugong's 400 dealers and1,300 service points worldwide ensure rapid delivery and repairresponse for cranes. This "product + service + solution"delivery model creates a differentiated advantage in emergingmarkets, increasing China's crane market share in Southeast Asia from42% in 2024 to 48% in 2025.
IV.Challenges and Outlook: Seizing Opportunities in a Breakthrough
Despitethe apparent resilience of exports, the crane industry still facesmultiple challenges. Trade barriers are the biggest obstacle. EUanti-dumping duties increase export costs for related companies by20%-50%, and there's a risk that this will spread to other productcategories. The issue of core component dependence has not been fullyresolved. High-end cranes still rely on imports for key componentslike hydraulic pumps and control systems, at 35%, constraining profitgrowth. Furthermore, the rapid rise of local companies in emergingmarkets has created direct competition in the small lifting equipmentsector.
Lookingahead, lifting equipment exports continue to have growth potential.In the short term, with monthly export growth rebounding since July,it is projected that truck crane exports will reach 9,000 units in2025, a year-on-year increase of 3%. Small crane exports are expectedto exceed 50,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 15%. In the longterm, the surge in global demand for lightweight, high-precisionlifting equipment in new energy infrastructure, coupled withcompanies' technological accumulation in electrification andintelligent technologies, will open up new growth opportunities.Companies need to adopt targeted strategies to address thesechallenges: At the market level, they should deepen their localpresence in emerging markets to circumvent trade barriers; at thetechnological level, they should increase R&D of core componentsto reduce reliance on imports; and at the service level, they shouldimprove their global service network to enhance customer loyalty. Byleveraging these multiple dimensions, they can drive thetransformation of lifting equipment exports from "scale growth"to "value growth," consolidating China's leading positionin the global construction machinery market.
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