In China, it is difficult to accurately count the number of manufacturers in the foundry industry. According to rough statistical estimation, there are more than 20000 foundries in China, excluding small family workshops. There are about 150 foundries in China, with about 120 million employees, and the average annual output of each factory is only 80 tons. The three major casting producing countries in the world (except China) have a total of 21651 foundries, of which India has the largest number of factories, only 45000. The general scale of industrial developed countries is more than 400 tons, while Germany has reached 7254 tons, which reflects that most factories in China can not reach the economic scale and have poor benefits. Most foundries are small and medium-sized enterprises, with low degree of specialization and production concentration, and serious low-level repeated construction. There are also a certain number of foundry enterprises with advanced technology, excellent equipment, stable quality and initial professional large-scale production, which have become the backbone of China’s foundry industry.
Since the reform and opening up, China’s foundry enterprises have introduced a large number of foreign advanced casting technology and equipment and advanced management technology through technological transformation or joint venture, strengthened digestion, absorption and independent research and development, and formed a number of modern foundry enterprises with economies of scale, product quality reaching the international advanced level and exporting high-level castings, This is the cornerstone of the development of China’s foundry industry. There are also a number of scientific research institutions engaged in foundry technology research in China. Therefore, colleges and universities that train senior technical talents for the development of foundry industry provide strong support for the sustainable development of foundry industry.
The productivity of China’s foundry industry is most concentrated in East China, accounting for 40.30%. Here, the productivity of each region is measured by its annual total production. After the reform and opening up, the preferential policies implemented by the government have attracted a lot of foreign investment, and the foundry industry has also been favored by foreign investors. It can be seen that according to incomplete statistics, there are 306 enterprises. Even from a low estimate, the number of foreign-related enterprises in China should exceed 400 by the end of 2003.