Important Chinese Brands
Manufacturers in China are building global brand recognition by setting up plants around the world and making mergers and acquisitions with western companies—a trend that will only speed up, said Su.

Sany, for instance, has built a plant and research center in Bedburg, Germany, that constitutes ">the biggest-ever investment in Europe made by a private Chinese company. Sany has since acquired Putzmeister, the giant German manufacturer of concrete pumps. The company also owns industrial units in Brazil, the U.S. and India.

The state-owned Chinese company XCMG soon will inaugurate industrial plants in India and Brazil; the latter is expected to start operations in the first half of 2013. Earlier this year, XCMG bought German-based Schwing-Stetter, which has truck-assembled, concrete-launching pumps, mobile concrete plants and stationary concrete pumps.

LiuGong now operates the HSW plant in Stalowa Wola, Poland, which produces a complete line of Caterpillar tractors by using Dressta-branded technology. Originally, Dressta developed its innovative technology through Komatsu, headquartered in Japan. It is believed to be the biggest Chinese investment in Poland as well as the biggest investment made by LiuGong. The company's objective was to enter the European market through one of the largest worldwide crawler-tractor companies.

Back at Bauma China, Zoomlion, which has acquired the Italian Cifa and its line of concrete pumps, highlighted its research-and-development work for its large mining shovel. The shovel has a 17-cu-meter capacity and uses a Cummins engine. The publicly traded company has had its shares listed on the Hong Kong stock market since 2010.

Lonking, another construction machinery giant in China, pulled a different kind of marketing stunt at Bauma. Instead of assembling an expensive booth with a showroom, the company only had a small booth but advertised free transportation to its factory, some 40 minutes away from the Shanghai exhibition center, where clients could see its line of products.

The plant, which has 6,000 employees, produces 68,000 machines a year, including manufacturing shovels, stackers and hydraulic digging machines that use Kawasaki hydraulic systems. "But we expect within two years to have developed our own system," said one sales manager.