China's machinery sector sees steady expansion in 2017

BEIJING - China's machinery sector saw steady expansion in added value and profits last year thanks to accelerating industrial upgrading and economic growth.

The industrial added value of China's machinery sector grew 10.7 percent, up 1.1 percentage points compared with the growth in 2016, data from the China Machinery Industry Federation showed.

The machinery sector raked in profits of 1.71 trillion yuan ($272 billion) last year, up 10.74 percent over 2016.

About 73.4 percent of the sector's major products saw increases in output, especially products related to China's infrastructure development, consumer market and logistics service, data from the industry body showed.

Production of digging machines surged 70 percent as urbanization picked up in pace.

Trade volume of the machinery sector grew 10.1 percent to reach $712.3 billion last year.

However, China still faces an imbalanced machinery market with oversupply of low-end machinery products but short supply of high-end ones, the federation said.