New Opportunities for China’s Foreign Trade Development: Global Expansion Potential for Products and Technologies Across Multiple Sectors

In the current global economic landscape, China’s foreign trade is ushering in new development opportunities. Guided by the goal of “carbon neutrality,” clean energy equipment is becoming one of the first sectors to benefit. The dual carbon goals are driving China’s energy transformation, expanding clean energy production capacity, and improving the efficiency of traditional energy sources. Clean energy equipment covers multiple aspects. Among renewable energy power generation and utilization equipment, demand for photovoltaic, wind power, nuclear power, and hydrogen energy equipment is expected to accelerate. The promotion of grid parity for wind and solar power and policy catalysis are driving demand for related equipment. Energy-saving and emission-reduction equipment, new power grid construction, and energy storage equipment are also crucial. With the increasing proportion of clean energy, the intelligent and digital construction of power grids and the demand for energy storage will continue to increase. In the lithium battery equipment sector, demand is strong, benefiting from the capacity expansion of downstream battery manufacturers. It is projected that by 2025, the global total installed capacity demand for lithium batteries will reach 2.3 TWh, with equipment demand reaching 220 billion yuan. Leading domestic and international lithium battery manufacturers are increasing their production capacity, and lithium battery equipment companies have ample orders and rapid revenue growth. In the photovoltaic equipment sector, domestically produced equipment is helping to reduce costs and improve efficiency. Domestic vacuum equipment is rapidly penetrating the photovoltaic industry’s capacity expansion; for example, Hanbell Precision Machinery’s products are now comparable to international giants. In silicon material production, domestically produced equipment is also helping to reduce costs and improve efficiency, enhancing the industry’s energy conservation and consumption levels. The cell segment is continuously pursuing improvements in conversion efficiency and reductions in material costs. Wind power equipment is entering a new stage under the “dual carbon” target. Wind turbine prices have fallen significantly, highlighting their competitiveness in the first year of grid parity. Distributed wind power and the renovation of old wind farms will bring incremental growth opportunities. Companies that benefit from the trend towards larger wind turbines and possess high barriers to entry will have excellent development opportunities. In the hydrogen energy equipment/fuel cell sector, policies are promoting the industrialization of hydrogen fuel cells, and hydrogen energy development is entering a fast track. Demand for fuel cell systems, hydrogen refueling stations, and related equipment is expected to be released first, and China is likely to become the world’s largest market for on-board hydrogen storage cylinders in the future. Nuclear power equipment has long-term development potential, and equipment companies are expected to benefit first under the background of carbon neutrality. The construction of spent fuel reprocessing capacity is also expected to accelerate, helping the nuclear industry achieve sustainable and circular development. Regarding the construction of new power grids, with the increasing proportion of clean energy, the opportunities for digital and intelligent power grid construction are promising. Although the short-term power supply and demand contradiction has eased, the long-term system security capability urgently needs to be strengthened. With the increased integration of wind and solar power, the intelligent and digital construction of the power grid will effectively solve the impact of new energy integration on the power grid. Furthermore, in 2022, US consumer demand is expected to remain strong, supported by excess savings, and retailers’ restocking demand will also support strong Chinese export demand. Signs of easing in the US-China trade friction suggest that high shipping costs and tight shipping capacity are likely to ease, potentially improving profits for export-oriented companies. Focusing on critical bottlenecks, the industrial robot and CNC machine tool industries have broad development prospects. In the industrial robot sector, factors such as China’s aging population will drive machine replacement of manual labor into a long-term trend, and domestic demand for industrial robots is expected to continue to rise. China has the foundation to produce world-leading robot companies and is expected to deeply integrate with the industrial internet in the future. The CNC machine tool industry has entered a phase of replacement of existing stock. Benefiting from import substitution and the self-sufficiency of high-end CNC machine tools, private enterprises will benefit from increased CNC automation rates and the localization rate of core components.