Workers produce steam turbines at a plant of the Hangzhou Turbine Group, Zhejiang province. [Photo/zj.zjol.com]

Heavy equipment, one of Zhejiang province's pillar industries, maintained steady growth in the first quarter of this year despite the COVID-19 outbreak.

Several major heavy equipment enterprises such as Hangzhou Boiler Group, Hangzhou Oxygen Plant Group and Hangzhou Turbine Group saw their sales and orders grow by 8 percent, 10 percent and 10 percent year-on-year respectively.

According to Zheng Bin, president of Hangzhou Turbine, the growth can be partly attributed to the fact that many of the orders were received last year before the outbreak of the epidemic. 

Jiang Ming, president of Hangzhou Oxygen Plant, noted that their products were urgently needed by clients as they were used for major projects.

Workers check a product at a plant of the Hangzhou Oxygen Plant Group, Zhejiang province. [Photo/zj.zjol.com]

The epidemic, however, has brought about some challenges for heavy equipment manufacturers, including a shortage of parts that are imported from overseas.

The best way to overcome this challenge is to produce parts within China that are just as good in quality, and this endeavor would require technological breakthroughs, said Han Yisong, chief general engineer of Hangzhou Oxygen Plant.

Hangzhou Turbine said they will invest more in R&D in the future.

"But we still have our chance as the nation will surely expand investment on big projects to realize its annual economic targets," said Hou Xiaodong, deputy executive general manager of Hangzhou Boiler.

The internet has also helped these companies. Hangzhou Boiler debugged a solar power station in Greece in early February through online guidance while Hangzhou Turbine supervised trial operations of their products online.

A production site of the Hangzhou Boiler Group, Zhejiang province [Photo/zj.zjol.com]