On July 14, 2018, China’s XCMG group delivered six mining equipment units to an African mining company, marking the first official access of XCMG large-scale mining products into the local mining market in Africa. At the delivery ceremony, Wang Yong, XCMG’s Manager in Africa handed over a golden key to symbolise a “win-win cooperation” to the customer company manager. This first batch of mining equipment delivered includes three XDA40 articulated mining trucks, one XE470D excavator, one GR2405 mining road grader and one LW1200KN wheel loader (which XCMG states is the largest capacity wheel loader currently in China). A statement said that both sides would also carry out further cooperation going forward.
After the XCMG products arrived at the site and passed PDI inspections, they still needed to get through the customer’s inspection. During the inspection of its mining ADT, XCMG states that it happened to rain heavily, but that the truck’s round trip test in muddy conditions and on a steep road “proved its excellent performance.” In addition to this, other XCMG equipment also performed well in a 50-hour empty load test and full load test. The customer Project Manager gave a thumbs up and said that they were even more confident with the purchase of XCMG products since they had seen them go through the rough testing.
XCMG states: “It’s known that South Africa, the high-end market of Africa, has been restricted the local government’s policy barrier in mining equipment supply for a long time. It adds more difficulty for Chinese brands to enter into local mining corporations competing with local, European and American brands. After a year’s communications with local clients along with visit invitations, the XCMG African branch company has impressed clients with its mature and high-efficient complete equipment set solution, along with excellent product quality and service.”
The export of XCMG’s large-scale mining equipment the company says broke a long-term monopoly of competitors in the supply of equipment in the region’s mining industry. Wang Min, President and Party Secretary of XCMG Group stated: “We need to attach importance to the building of XCMG’s South Africa team, and cooperate with local large mining companies to break the monopoly of international famous brands on South African mining companies.”
XCMG says it will “compete with world-class competitors face to face, lead the market with leading technology, and hit the global market with big-scale, intelligent and whole-set products,” while making every effort to build a big-scale, complete set of open-air mining machinery which it believes will soon rank first in China and top 3 in the world.