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In this article we cover machinery imports from China. While “machinery” may refer to 3D printers, wheel loaders or tattoo removal lasers, there are certain risks that all of these have in common.
In this article, we cover regulations, spare parts, warranties and maintenance issues, when importing machinery and spare parts from China.
Machinery encompasses power tools, agricultural machinery, packaging and printing machinery, forklifts, wheel loaders and many other products.
These products are part of entirely different industries, but there are still some major industrial clusters in China that may be of particular interest to machinery buyers. Below follows a list of the most important cities and provinces:
In most industries, the eastern provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shandong makes up more than half of China’s machinery exports.
If you want to visit suppliers, the easiest way to get there is by first flying to Shanghai, and then travel by high speed train to, and between, the provincial cities.
Below follows an overview of relevant products that are produced in Mainland China, for the export market:
We can help you manufacture products in China, Vietnam & India?
Most buyers of machinery, parts and vehicles are not looking to order customized products, but factory designed products. However, referring to technical product specifications is as important when buying factory designed products. Keep in mind that there’s no universal standard of “good quality” – especially not in China.
Below follows a few suggestions that you may want to include in your product specification:
When buying factory designed products, the supplier shall provide all product specifications, including detailed datasheets. A supplier refusing to offer such documentation is most likely not a manufacturer, but a small trader.
Vehicles, agricultural, production and various other types of machinery are regulated by one or more directives, or ‘consensus standards’. In most markets, including Europe, America, Australia and India, the importer is responsible to ensure that their imported machinery is compliant with applicable standards.
Compliance with local machinery regulations is not optional. Importing non-compliant machinery may result in having the units seized by the customs authorities – or face a forced recall, combined with heavy fines.
The main issue, when buying from China, is that most machinery is made for the domestic market – rather than foreign markets.
‘Made for China’ machinery is not generally not compliant with mechanical and electrical safety standards in other countries and markets, such as the EU and the US. Thus, verifying that a supplier can show previous compliance is critical.
In some industries, the compliance rate is as low as 5%. That said, before you can verify if a supplier is compliant, you need to know which standards and directives are relevant in your market. Keep reading and find out.
The Machinery Directive (MD) is applicable to machinery either manufactured in the European Union or imported from outside.
Even if the items are manufactured overseas, the importer is responsible to ensure that the machine is CE compliant, which includes the following:
However, some types of tractors, motor vehicles, trailers, and electrical appliances are regulated by more specific directives. Some EU member states also apply their own, local, regulations.
There are also a wide range of ISO standards developed for specific types of machinery (e.g. ISO 5247-3:1993, Weaving machines). Click here to read more about ISO standards.
As with all electrical components, RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive) compliance is also required. We’ve already covered the RoHS directive in a separate article, which you find here.
As already mentioned, keep in mind that most machinery made in China is produced for the domestic market.
Thus, verifying CE Machinery Directive compliance is critical, before an order is placed. Otherwise, you run a great risk of importing non-compliant machinery, which is illegal to place on the market.
ASTM International has developed and published a range of standards. However, unlike the CE Machinery Directive, which is applicable to most machines, there are no single ASTM standards that regulate all types of machinery.
Instead, different ASTM standards apply to different types of products. Click here to read more about ASTM standards.
There are also other consensus standards (industry developed) administered by other organisations, including:
Machinery is not regulated by a uniform directive or set of standards in Australia. Instead, various standards are applicable to different types of machinery. Certain types of machinery, including mobility scooters, trolley jacks and mini bikes, are required to be AS/NZS compliant.
Electrical machinery, on the other hand, is regulated by the ERAC Equipment Certification System. Click here to read more about Australia product safety standards.
Certain countries accept machinery that is compliant with American and European standards. However, there are plenty of countries that have implemented their own machinery regulations, including India and Nigeria:
Regulates pumping, irrigation, drainage and sewage equipment, automotive components, electronics and optical equipment, testing instruments, and most other types of machinery are regulated by the ISI mark directive or BIS Product Certification Scheme.
Most types of machinery are regulated by the SONCAP directive. Compliance with the SONCAP directive requires a pre-shipment approval, proving that the item is compliant with the applicable NIS (Nigerian Industrial Standards). Click here to read more about SONCAP, and other product regulations.
When sourcing machines in China, you have two options:
a. Pay for a machine to undergo lab testing (by an accredited third-party)
b. Limit your product selection to machines that are already lab tested
Option A is rarely viable for small businesses, as lab testing for machines can cost more than US$10,000.
Hence, you will likely need to limit your product selection to SKUs with existing test reports.
A test report should include the following information:
a. SKU (Product ID)
b. Issuing company (i.e., SGS or Intertek)
c. Manufacturer
d. Issuing date
e. Applicable regulations (i.e., Low Voltage Directive)
The test report is only of value if it’s valid for the same SKU that you’re planning to buy, and if it comes from the same manufacturer.
Some suppliers provide fake test reports or documents that are actually owned by another company.
Just keep in mind that the test report is not enough. You also need to create a DoC, technical file, and ensure that the machine is correctly labeled.
Many Chinese machinery manufacturers claim to offer warranties, sometimes spanning for several years. However, before you place an order, you are wise to confirm the specific warranty terms set by the supplier.
At most, Chinese suppliers offer free spare parts, but only if the importer pays the freight cost. In some cases, it’s cheaper to buy spare parts locally, rather than paying for the air freight, not to mention import duties and other taxes.
Replacement part deliveries also take plenty of time, and a standstill in production can cost millions.
Thus, it’s critical that you maintain a spare parts storage, that keeps you running until the supplier has delivered a replacement. At a minimum, you should expect to wait 30 days for new spare parts to arrive.
Chinese manufacturers also have a bad habit of doing whatever they can to avoid honoring the warranty terms. Thus, you need to clarify how warranty claims shall be settled.
Sending damaged parts back to China for examination is both time-consuming and expensive. The only viable way to settle warranty claims is by sending images and video, documenting the damages.
Chinese machinery suppliers sometimes offer installation services. However, they rarely have employees, or partnerships with maintenance firms, overseas.
Thus, their offering is limited to sending a technician overseas, but only if they can obtain a visa for the country of destination.
The complexity of securing a visa for a Chinese temporary worker is not be underestimated, as I learned myself a few years ago. A European client of ours ordered PVC banner printers from a manufacturer in Shenyang, Liaoning province. Their decision to not invest in a Quality Inspection proved to be a disastrous move when the cargo arrived.
The printers were defective, and needed repairs and new parts. As they lacked the technical experience to repair and install the machine by themselves, not to mention the needed parts, their only option was to request direct assistance from their supplier.
We were tasked with resolving the situation and provided the supplier with clear instructions on how to obtain an EU Schengen visa, for one of their technicians. Without going into details, I can say that the machine was, literary, collecting dust for more than 6 months, before the visa was secured and the technician could get it up and running.
That’s the time it can take to get things done.
Machines require maintenance, repairs, and spare parts – all of which are offered by American, European, and Japanese machinery suppliers.
However, their Chinese counterparts are not nearly as sophisticated.
Of course, there may be exceptions that I am personally not aware of, but in general, businesses importing Chinese made machinery better rely on local technicians, or their own skills, and spare part suppliers – rather than expecting the supplier to solve anything.
This is also one major, or perhaps the most important, reason why Chinese machinery manufacturers are yet to gain momentum in developed countries.
Remember what I said about the client that received a damaged banner printing machine? For unknown reasons, they decided that a Quality inspection was not necessary. That mistake cost them tens of thousands of euros, in terms of lost business.
It’s critical to verify that a machine is fully functional, and compliant with your quality requirements, before the shipment.
Returning defective items to China is rarely an option, for the following two reasons:
1. Even if you do return the items, the Chinese customs authorities may not allow the shipment back into the country.
2. Assuming they do, you are not guaranteed a refund from the supplier anyway. At best, they’ll patch it up and send back the machinery your way – but only after you’ve paid the return freight.
Thus, you must verify that your machines are functional, and compliant before the cargo leaves the factory. The only way to do this is by performing an on-site Quality inspection, either by yourself or by hiring an inspector based in China.
Testing shall not be limited to a basic component checklist and visual control, but also involve “real life” functional testing.
Functional errors and minor defects can be resolved quickly by the factory workers if discovered in time. Even if technical issues can be resolved, after delivery, it will cost you dearly.
Technicians in the west are several times more expensive than their Chinese counterparts.
The Canton Fair is not only China’s biggest trade fair but also Asia’s biggest trade fair for machinery and parts. Here, you’ll find suppliers of electric engines, pumps, packaging machinery, sewing machines, and much more – all under the same roof. Click here to read more about the Canton Fair.
HKTDC hosts several annual trade fairs in spring and autumn. The following trade fairs are relevant to buyers of medical devices, printing machinery and electrical machinery:
Listed Companies
Disclaimer
We are not affiliated with any of the companies listed in this guide. We have selected these companies based on their claimed product scope, history, certification, and capabilities.
Guangzhou Keshenglong Carton Packing Machine is a carton packing machine manufacturer established in the 1990s. The company specialized in manufacturing carton printing machinery and carton packaging machinery.
The comprehensive services offered by Keshenglong include R&D of the machine parts and components, machine designing, machine producing, and machine assembly.
Keshenglong has exported its machinery to over 70 countries, including several countries in the EU, the United States, Canada, and Australia.
Main Products
Summary
Location: No.77 Xieshi Road, Zhongcun Town, Panyu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong
Ruian Honetop Machinery was founded in 2002 in Ruian, Zhejiang Province, focusing on providing solutions to packaging companies of various products, such as food, granules, liquid and paste, powder, paper straws, and other types of products.
In addition to packaging machines, Ruian Honetop Machinery also produces more than 20 types of automatic machines in over 60 models, such as paper straw production machines, rotary premade pouch packing machines, and mask making machines.
Main Products
Summary
Location: Gexiang Industrial Zone, Feiyun Street, Ruian, Zhejiang
Shenzhen Xinquanli Machinery was established in 1995 and engages in the research, development, and manufacture of sofa machinery.
The company has a professional technical team of engineers and product designers who provide customers with professional technical advice, plant process planning, and professional mechanical products and other services.
The product lines of Shenzhen Xinquanli Machinery are divided into 6 segments, covering every part of a sofa, such as fiber making, foam cutting, filling. These machines include semi-auto fiber carding & cushion filling lines, manual foam angel cutting lines, and CNC contouring lines.
Main Products
Summary
Location: Intersection of Lanzhu East Road and Jinlan Road, Pingshan New Area, Shenzhen, Guangdong
Zhejiang Changjiang Machinery is a professional designer, manufacturer, and exporter of garden machines from Taizhou, Zhejiang province. The company was founded in 1998 and has been engaged in R&D activities for the past two decades, offering ODM and OEM grass trimmers and grass mowers of more than 30 models, available in different capacities, wheel sizes, heights, and fuel tank volume, and out power.
For example, clients can customize lawn mowers with different sizes, depending on the practical applications. Other customizable elements include the usages of the machines, such as motorcycle lawn mowers, hand-held lawnmowers, and auto-pilot lawnmowers.
Currently, the factory area of Zhejiang Changjiang Machinery covers more than 55,000 square meters, with an annual export volume close to 40,000,000 USD.
Main Products
Summary
Location: Changjiang Road No.9, Wenling, Taizhou, Zhejiang
Dongguan Hengsheng Machinery Manufacture was founded in 2000, specializes in the designing and manufacturing of machinery used in the PU and urethane foam product processing industry, such as furniture, beddings, textiles, and footwear.
Currently, Hengsheng is able to produce more than 3,000 sets of machines per year. These products include foam making machines, cotton regeneration machines, and foam flattening machines.
Main Products
Summary
Location: Room 814a, Building A1, Area A, Dongguan Tianan Cyber Park, No.1 Huangjin Road, Nancheng District, Dongguan, Guangdong
Jiangsu Yawei Machine Tool, founded in 1956, is one of the leading firms in the sheet metal forming machine tooling industry.
The company has been engaged in the research and development, manufacturing, and sales of CNC laser cutting machine, metal plate processing, coil line equipment, linear and horizontal multi-joint robots, and other intelligent and automation machinery.
Currently, Jiangsu Yawei Machine Tool owns a manufacturing center of more than 330,000 square meters, employing more than 1,200 people, yielding a net revenue of a hundred million Chinese RMB. In 2011, was listed in the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Company.
Main Products
Summary
Location: Room 814a, Building A1, Area A, Dongguan Tianan Cyber Park, No.1 Huangjin Road, Nancheng District, Dongguan, Guangdong
Luoyang Shiying Machinery Production is a manufacturer specializing in the designing and manufacturing of tractors based in Luoyang, Henan. The company mainly produces medium to large scale tractors, castings, forgings, and other parts and components of agricultural machinery.
The tractors of Luoyang Shiying are mainly used in agriculture fields. There are more than 10 models of medium to large scale tractors that are used for harvesting, planting, and fertilizing.
Main Products
Summary
Location: Luoyang Airport Industry Park, Henan
Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group was founded in 1943, which is now one of the renowned and influential construction machinery corporations in China.
Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group focuses on providing clients customizable solutions for their construction projects. At the moment, the company offers more than a hundred models of heavy-duty machinery designed to be used for crane lifting, mining construction, earth-moving, and more.
For each type of machinery, there are various customizable options. For example, a crane can be customizable into a truck-adapted, crawler-adapted, rough-terrain-adapted, tower-adapted, and lorry-adapted style.
Main Products
Summary
Location: Tongshan Road, Xuzhou, Jiangsu
Shaoxing Jinhao Machinery is located in the textile market of Asia China Keqiao Textile City in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province. The company focuses on manufacturing and supplying automatic and computerized textile knitting machines for gloves, socks, bras, underpants, and sweaters.
Currently, the factory of Shaoxing Jinhao Machinery occupies more than 40,000 square meters of land and employs more than 800 workers, mainly exporting to Europe, the Middle East, and North America.
Main Products
Summary
Location: Keyan Industrial Area, Shaoxing County, Zhejiang
Twothousand Machinery was founded in 2000, focusing on providing solutions for commercial kitchen equipment.
Twothousand Machinery builds 6 types of machinery, which are kitchen machinery for food preparation, baking equipment, cooking equipment, refrigeration equipment,
stainless steel storage shelves, and utensil sterilizers.
Twothousand Machinery mainly serves restaurants, cafes, and supermarkets, offering more than 30 types of machinery for the purpose of food refrigeration, food processing, and baking.
The manufacturing center of Twothousand Machinery is located in Guangzhou, occupying more than 5,000 square meters areas, with a showroom of over 1,000 square meters inside the factory, displaying more than a hundred models of machinery.
The production capacity of Twothousand Machinery is around 100-5,000 pieces per month, depending on the individual type of machinery and different customization requirements from the customers.
Main Products
Summary
Location: No 105, 18 West Street, Huagang Garden, Tianhe District, Guangzhou, Guangdong
Co-founder of Asiaimportal (HK) Limited and based in Hong Kong. He has been quoted in and contributed to Bloomberg, SCMP, Alibaba Insights, Globalsources.com, China Chief Executive, Quartz Magazine and more.
Comments are closed.
I am a used machine dealer specializing in die cutter for the folding box industry. I am considering buying a used die cutter from the Tern Shine Machinery Co. in New Taipei City, China. My concern is the import tariff customs places on equipment coming into the US. What can you tell me about this?
Hello, how can I contact you, please?
I’m ordering a mini excavator from Shandong China Machinery Co.,LTD. Has anyone heard of this company?
Hello, I know this company, have you purchased your mini excavator, please? Oh, such a long time passed
I purchased a 5 color CNC rotary screen printing machine purchased from Guangzhou in 2018. It was delivered in late 2018. Installation required two Chinese technician to come to the US. They were originally not allowed, but eventually made it to our facility in April, 2029. It took them about a week to setup and install. Since then, they will not support in any way our machine. So I am wondering if their is any support/repair companies in the USA that would help with software and hardware related problems?
Hi Ken,
Unfortunately, this is the risk with buying machinery from China (or anywhere outside of the supplier’s service scope). Dealt with this exact situation back in 2013 (the engineers couldn’t get visas).
I am not aware of any company that can help with this in the US though.
Hello,
Do you have information on reputation BODOR laser China
Hello I am Krishna from India
I am actually looking for construction used machineries as I have contact thought Facebook with a guy working in a used machinery desk
I would like to know about the taxes from China to India
All th detail’s regarding machinery’s and shipment
Is it worth to buy from China or better buy here in India
Thankyou
Hi, Fredrik, very good and practical suggestions. I am coming from one textile laser cutting machine manufacturer. And I have 2 suggestions for auditing the factory by yourself while you may not be able to come to China and visit the factory now. Firstly, you can request for live broadcasting to have a tour of the factory and check their QC files and records and warehouse and manufacturing workshop, you will have a very clear idea if they can make a good quality machine. Secondly, you can check if they attend any local exhibitions and what machine they are exhibiting to check if they are professional about the machine you are looking for. If they regularly attend and have their own brand, then highly possible a reliable partner to work with. Because if they invest lot of money in exhibitions, they must cherish their brand and after-sale service will be guaranteed. Dont just listen to sales how good their after-sale service is, check how much money they spend on branding and marketing. Have a nice day.
Good insights!
I have an idea of a machine which i want it manufactured or fabricated. It has not being in existence before, it a brand new idea. A sort of pealing machine.
Since, is an idea i want it implemented. How do i get the machine manufacturers in China?, What is the necessary process to actualise this?, How do i go about this in China, since am not in connection with any such companies in China?, What is the cost implication of embarking on such project?, What other steps should i take in my country?. Am from Nigeria.
Kind regards,
Kingsley.
Hi Eze,
There’s a lot of product development that goes into a project like this. You cannot simply present your idea to a manufacturer.
Before you even contact them you need to create a complete technical specification (PCB, BoM, CAD files etc)
We are an Engineering Plastics and Industrial polymer supplier/trading company
We are looking forward to importing from china. We are still discussing this topic that should we import or not. Because our products are quality guaranteed, so should we go ahead or should we not.
Are there any tractors imported from China to NZ at all?
Just noticed a 51% increase of imported tractors in January 2018 compared with 2017.
Hi Wendy,
We have no customs data for NZ so I can’t tell.
I know of a 180 unit deal with New Zealand
it was very help full for my new site.
I want to import a small scale edible oil refinery from China to India with a capacity upto 3 tons per day. Please help me, I don’t how much custom duty will I have to pay.
Am importing a container of Farm bikes from China to NZ do I need certicate Euro3 for this or not?
Requirement by our our law :
For how many yrs the importer is obliged to provide spares of machines
imported from China ?
Great article
However requesting a Quality Insoection does not necessary help as I i ported Machinery from. A factory in China who I vetted and had an agent even visit them with all documentation I awaited my machines
I was sent broken machinery but the Motors on the machinery were burnt and the Swasi easily visible to the eyes
SGS has flatly refused to take responsibility and refuse to supply me the Inspection certificates and I sists the supplier advised them th emacjines were according to specification and terms contained in our agreement so they accepted same and they are not obliged to Physically test same
So SGS is a waste of time
Nobody polices SGS!! If any world body Has authority over SGS please advise as Chineses firms are not reliable
Hello,
Did you order a Quality Inspection from SGS, or did you only require them to go there and audit the supplier? That is a big difference.