The nation's first coating equipment export order from Europe, valued at more than 6 million yuan ($830,000), was unveiled on Tuesday in Shanghai, which displayed Chinese manufacturers' rising competitiveness in a sector once dominated by foreign companies, said industry experts.

The industrial machine tool, a G4 super-HiPIMS coating machine, is the first such apparatus of its kind designed, researched, tested and manufactured by a Chinese company, said Li Lisheng, chairman of Guangdong Huasheng Nanotechnology Co Ltd, at the China CNC Machine Tool Fair 2024 in Shanghai.

Li said that over 20 million yuan worth of orders for the same machine tool model were placed with four Chinese companies on Tuesday at the exhibition.

"In fact, we have confirmed as many as 20 orders from buyers from home and abroad since debuting the equipment on Nov 30, and order values have exceeded 150 million yuan," Li added.

Wang Xu, vice-president of China Machine Tool and Tool Builders' Association, said Huasheng's export of high-end coating equipment to Europe conforms to the rapid development of Chinese manufacturers.

"After decades of development, China's machine tool industry finally achieved a trade surplus in machine tool products in 2019, and in terms of machine tool mainframe equipment, its exports exceeded imports in 2023," said Wang.

"This is a milestone that represents Chinese companies' growing involvement and enhanced competitiveness in the sector globally," Wang added.

China's machine tool exports rose 10.6 percent to reach $10.53 billion in 2023, and the growth trend remains robust entering 2024, as $880 million worth of machine tools were exported in the first two months, up 25 percent from the same period of 2023, according to a research report from Huaan Securities.

The continuous improvement in product performance and outstanding cost-effectiveness has propelled domestic machine tool makers to win overseas orders, added the report.

"In the coming five years, we expect to generate more than 5 billion yuan from this particular coating equipment," Li said.

Huasheng formed a 150-member team to design, research and develop the coating equipment in August 2019, and also invested a total of 80 million yuan in the project so far.

In order to maintain its competitive advantages, Huasheng looks to cooperate with colleges and universities in talent development in the future.

A total of four product lines (including coating machines) are currently under continuous development, as the company plans to produce more world-class products in the future, Li added.