In recent years, the self-sufficiency rate of China's machine tools has hovered around 48%. The serious self-supply and the structural contradiction between machine tool consumption and production have caused China's machine tool imports to increase sharply year by year. The import value has increased from 1.35 billion US dollars in 1998 to 2002. 3.15 billion US dollars, a cumulative increase of 133%. During the same period, exports increased from 2.5 billion U.S. dollars to 3.06 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of only 22%.

In 2003, the deficit in China's machine tool import and export increased further. In the first quarter, the import of metal processing machine tools in China was 890 million U.S. dollars, an increase of 53.82% year-on-year, an increase of 42.4 percentage points over the same period of the previous year. Imports of machine tools from Jinchuang were 645 million U.S. dollars, an increase of 70.31% year-on-year, an increase of 64.3% over the same period of last year. Percentage. Compared with imports, exports have maintained steady growth, but the growth rate has been significantly lower. In the first quarter, exports of metal processing machines totaled US$71 million, an increase of only 17.91% year-on-year. Based on the above trends, it is expected that in 2003, China's machine tool import and export deficit may exceed 3.2 billion US dollars.