Industry experts say that how to catch up with or even surpass the food packaging machinery of developed countries, how to increase the pace of independent innovation, and strive to develop a batch of products with independent intellectual property rights and international advanced levels in a short period of time are urgent tasks facing my country's food packaging machinery companies.

"In the first seven months of this year, although the export growth of my country's food packaging machinery industry was greater than the import growth, the import and export trade deficit showed a trend of widening. This shows that our industry has not caught up with the development needs of domestic downstream industries in new product development, or that there are some equipment that we have in variety, but the quality and performance cannot meet the requirements of rapidly developing domestic downstream enterprises. For the Chinese food packaging machinery industry, without innovation, it will always lag behind others." Recently, He Nanzhi, executive vice president of the China Food and Packaging Machinery Industry Association, issued a warning to the industry.

The growth rate of the entire industry is slowing down
Food and beverage packaging is the largest market segment in the packaging machinery industry. According to industrial census data, there are nearly 6,000 food packaging machinery companies in my country, but most of them are small and medium-sized enterprises. According to statistics from the China Food and Packaging Machinery Industry Association, in July, 1,247 enterprises achieved a total industrial output value of 46.96 billion yuan, of which the output value of new products was 27.91 billion yuan, an increase of 33.06% over the same period last year; the industrial sales output value was 45.4 billion yuan, an increase of 24.82% over the same period last year. However, the import and export trade deficit is widening. In the first half of this year, imports were 1.332 billion US dollars and exports were 738 million US dollars.

Since the second half of 2008, my country's food packaging machinery industry has been affected by the international financial crisis. Although it has maintained a rising trend against the trend, the growth rate has slowed down and is obviously not as good as in previous years. According to statistics from the China Machinery Industry Federation, in the first half of this year, my country's machinery industry has generally continued the recovery trend since the fourth quarter of last year, with production and sales growth exceeding 35%, a record high in recent years. However, in the food packaging machinery industry, "although the industry output value in the first half of this year increased by more than 30% compared with the same period last year, this data may be a bit watery." He Nanzhi said.

The statistics of the China Machinery Industry Federation also illustrate this point. In terms of operating efficiency, the profit of the machinery industry in the first half of this year increased by 86.13% year-on-year, while the food packaging machinery industry was the lowest, only more than 25%.

"This is a dangerous signal. It shows that the speed of new product development is slowing down, or that the developed new products are not marketable. Even a few companies that did well in 2009 did not pay enough attention to the development of new products, resulting in insufficient development momentum. The development of the industry cannot rely solely on the increase in sales of old products. Without new products as technical support, how can technological progress be reflected? I hope to attract the attention of industry companies." On many occasions, He Nanzhi expressed such concerns.

The gap cannot be ignored

China's packaging machinery industry started late. After more than 20 years of development, it has become one of the top ten industries in the machinery industry, providing effective guarantee for the rapid development of the packaging industry. Today, my country's packaging machinery industry and packaging production have entered a new period of adjusting product structure and improving development capabilities. Technology upgrading, product replacement, and improvement of management and management capabilities are important topics for the development of the packaging machinery industry.

Industry experts pointed out that compared with foreign countries, the current gap in the level of packaging machinery manufacturing in my country is mainly reflected in technology. The technical strength of enterprises is itself dependent on production, so development research faces limitations in both scientific research and laboratory equipment. A new technology cannot be directly applied to production without the preliminary development of scientific research institutes. The development of cutting-edge technology requires both knowledge and equipment investment. Enterprises are unwilling to invest, and scientific research institutions do not have the strength. In the long run, the gap between my country and the international advanced level will become larger and larger. In order to adapt to the fierce competition in the market, the cycle of packaging product replacement is getting shorter and shorter. The ability of technological innovation is weak, the progress of process technology is slow, and the development of new products has not fundamentally gotten rid of the situation of imitation, making it impossible for enterprises to cope with changes in the situation and their competitiveness is not strong.

In this regard, industry experts believe that China's packaging machinery's excessive dependence on foreign high-end technology has become a hidden worry that seriously restricts the development of China's packaging equipment industry. China is still in the learning stage as a whole and lacks experience in flexible application. Therefore, it is an inevitable trend for the domestic packaging equipment industry to take the road of independent innovation. The development trend of the packaging machinery industry in the future is that the equipment will be smaller, more flexible, multi-purpose and efficient. Chinese enterprises should stand at a new starting point to examine and solve problems, change development concepts, enhance market awareness, further improve processing technology and precision, and quickly catch up with the world's advanced level with a more perfect appearance and stable manufacturing level.

At the same time, the low-level duplication of packaging machinery has become an obstacle to the upgrading and innovation of industry products. He Nanzhi believes that about 30% of enterprises in my country's packaging machinery industry have low-level duplication. This situation not only wastes limited funds, manpower and other important resources, but also causes disorder in the packaging machinery market, hinders the healthy development of the industry, and restricts the upgrading of packaging machinery and innovation of packaging technology for small and medium-sized food enterprises in my country. However, industry experts pointed out that to solve this problem, natural elimination can only be achieved through market regulation and strengthening the supervision of its downstream industry-the food industry.

Only by continuous adjustment can we make progress

Since September, China's machinery manufacturing industry has also entered the peak production season of "Golden September and Silver October". Many companies have started production lines at full speed to meet the surging year-end orders. During the interview, the reporter found that some Chinese manufacturing companies that were not recognized overseas have successfully "gone overseas" with the help of the recent financial crisis, and overseas orders have grown rapidly this year.

Due to the prejudice of European and American users against Chinese packaging machinery products, the products of Chinese food packaging machinery companies were exported to the United States, Germany and other European and American countries before, and then quickly forwarded to the surrounding underdeveloped countries. Due to the global financial crisis, many European and American users cut costs and began to try Chinese products, providing Chinese companies with a platform to demonstrate their strength.

Industry experts pointed out that facing market demand and how to catch up with or even surpass the food packaging machinery of developed countries, as well as how to increase the pace of independent innovation, strive to develop a batch of products with independent intellectual property rights and international advanced levels in a short period of time, is an urgent task facing my country's food packaging machinery companies. There are very few domestic packaging machinery manufacturers that can carry out professional research and development, which is also our shortcoming. However, with the continuous efforts of some domestic packaging machinery manufacturers, domestic packaging machinery has achieved good results in measurement, manufacturing, technical performance, etc., especially beer and beverage filling equipment with high speed, complete sets, high degree of automation and good reliability. In addition, the emergence of mechatronics has increased the demand for automated packaging equipment.