Economic Watch: "Excavator Index" reflects vitality of China's infrastructure development

CHANGSHA, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Excavator operator Xu Zhengtao worked through the Spring Festival without pause at a commercial real estate construction project in central China's Hubei Province.

This is the 15th project Xu has worked on over the past year. "The more my excavator works, the more money I can make," he said, without realizing that the operating rate and workload of each excavator are aggregated into the "excavator index" that serves as an indicator of China's infrastructure development.

Based on the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) platform of ROOTCLOUD, an industrial internet service provider, the index tracks the operating rate of hundreds of thousands of construction machinery across the country.

The index showed that the operating rate of construction machinery has gone up steadily since the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year. There has been a surge in construction projects nationwide, with significant increases in Beijing, Hebei, Henan, Inner Mongolia and Shandong.

"We have seen the launch of major construction projects across the country. The Excavator Index surge proves that the economy is recovering, and infrastructure construction is accelerating," said He Dongdong, co-founder and CEO of ROOTCLOUD.

The index upturn has also been confirmed in many project construction sites.

The airport reconstruction project in Changsha, capital city of Hunan, is currently in full swing, with nearly 100 diggers, tower cranes, truck cranes and rotary drilling rigs roaring, and more than 400 constructors working hard on the site.

"Construction projects would usually resume after the Lantern Festival (the 15th day of the first lunar month), however, many projects have started as early as the 7th day of the first lunar month this year," said Li Xiaocong, chief technical engineer of the project under the General Construction Company of CCFED Co. Ltd.

The company has resumed construction on eight major projects in Hunan, Jiangxi, Fujian and Sichuan.

Major projects play a crucial role in the economic growth of the country, which in turn stimulates the development of the construction machinery industry.

"Our production of concrete pump trucks has increased from about 100 units per month in the second half of last year to more than 240 units per month," said Xie Changhong, who works with China's leading heavy equipment manufacturer SANY Group.

In addition to large-scale infrastructure projects such as railways, highways, airports and water conservancy, the list also includes projects involving high-end equipment, new energy and the digital economy.

In Shanghai, 77 of the 191 major projects planned for the megacity this year are related to the science and technology industries.

"Since the beginning of the year, China has stepped up project planning and investment and promoted the development of emerging industries, sending a positive signal of sustaining economic growth and boosting market confidence," said Sun Ting, chairman of Hualun Bobang Project Management Co., Ltd.