Yizumi is molding a great future overseas

Machine maker has big plans to expand into key foreign markets after moving into India, reports Li Wenfang in Foshan, Guangdong.

Guangdong Yizumi Precision Machinery Co, one of China's largest injection molding and die casting machine makers, hopes to finalize the site location for its first manufacturing facility in India this year, a key component of its planned expansion overseas.

Deputy General Manager Zhang Tao said the Indian site will allow the company to access the country's growing injection molding machine market, without having to pay hefty import taxes levied by the Indian authorities on China-made products to tackle dumping.

Zhang said the company views India as an important market with significant potential.

The country's manufacturing industry continues to grow rapidly, in the plastics and light alloy sectors, particularly, but also automobile and motorcycle production, with the still relatively low per capita consumption of industrial products.

Yizumi launched a service center in India last year, and the country is already its largest overseas market for casting machines, worth $4.12 million in exports last year.

Targeting the middle to high end of the market, the new Indian production facility will initially assemble parts made in China, but will soon depend on local part procurement.

The latest statistics showed just what a growing presence Chinese-made plastic machinery is enjo ying.

According to figures from the German Engine ering Association, Chinese exports of plastic machinery surged by 23 percent last year.

Separately, the China Plastics Machinery Industry Association now claims China-made plastics machinery make up more than half of global production.

"Previously many were in mostly the low to middle end of the market, but exporters are now moving into the middle to high end," said Su Dongping, the CPMIA's secretary-general.

Su said Haitian International Holdings Ltd, which manufactures and distributes plastic injection molding machines, is now considered the world's largest plastics machinery maker.

"Companies with sufficient capital and research have plenty of opportunities to establish plants overseas," he said.

Yizumi was listed on ChiNext, China's Nasdaq-style board, on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, in January this year, and Su said many medium-sized companies are planning to set up their own manufacturing operations abroad, after going public.

Yizumi's Indian project will become its second investment overseas, following its acquisition in March 2011 of Hydraulic Press Manufacturing Co, the century-old United States machinery maker.

Six months after that takeover, it established HPM North America Corp, and then purchased another company, BIVOUAC Engineering Service Co.

HPM North America has since launched a series of new designs and had its manufacturing function shifted to Foshan, Guangdong province, where Yizumi has its headquarters.

The subsidiary recorded $5 million revenue between July 2011 and the end of 2014.

Zhang said he sees significant potential for the offshoot, based on the favorable recovery of manufacturing in the US, and substantial growth in machinery exports from China to the US in the past two years.

The company plans to expand its network of local distributors to enhance sales and rent more warehouses to speed up delivery and improve after-sales service, he said.

Over the past two years, Yizumi has become China's largest cold chamber die casting machine exporter and the fifth-largest injection molding machine exporter.

Its overseas sales rose by one-fifth year-on-year last year and now account for 15 percent of revenue. The company's total revenue increased 12.6 percent to 1.175 billion yuan ($193 million).

The company now sells its products in more than 50 countries, Zhang said, and has the potential for more, driven particularly by robust demand from major markets such as South Korea and Turkey.