People are much more familiar with Zhejiang province's light industrial products, such as garments, food, and other consumer goods, than its heavy industrial products.

However, many heavy industrial sectors are gaining momentum in Zhejiang as well. A shining example of this is the medium and high-end numerically-controlled machine tools made in the province.

According to industry experts, the Zhejiang cities of Hangzhou and Jiaxing are leading the way in the R&D and industrialization of Chinese precise numerically-controlled machine tools, while Ningbo excels in manufacturing high-end numerically-controlled machine tools and their key components, and Wenling and Yuhuan are home to one of the country's most important industrial clusters of medium and small-sized numerically-controlled machine tools.

In 2020, the industrial value-added of the province's manufacturers of high-end numerically-controlled machine tools surged 20 percent from the previous year, 10 percentage points higher than the sector's average growth rate nationwide.

"2020 was supposed to be a difficult year. China's machine tool industry had been on the decline since 2012 and all manufacturing sectors were hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak last year. We were initially pessimistic about the business prospects of machine tool manufactures," said an official from the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Economy and Information.

He said he believes the reason for the sector's success is the speed at which domestic manufacturers have bridged the technology gap with foreign manufacutres and the effectiveness with which they meet Chinese clients' demands for industrial upgrades in various fields.

As China rapidly brought COVID-19 under control and successfully resumed work and production ahead of other countries last year, many purchases for machine tools from both domestic and foreign clients shifted to Chinese manufacturers.

"I reckon the pandemic was a catalyst for the accelerated development of Chinese machine tool manufacturers, which seized on the opportunity to expand their market presence," said Wang Benshan, president of Rifa Precision Machinery Co, a Shaoxing-based machine tool manufacturer which last year saw a surge in purchases of its processing machines for bearings. The company has now occupied around 60 percent of the niche market in China.

In 2014, Rifa Precision Machinery Co took full ownership of MCM, a well-known Italian machine tool manufacturer that supplies Agusta Westland, Ferrari, and Daimler.  Since then, Rifa has been introducing and assimilating the acquired company's advanced technologies into its own productions. Wang plans to establish MCM's subsidiary in Shaoxing in the coming months, which he views as a significant step forward.

"A decade ago, more than half of the Chinese market for medium-end machine tools was occupied by manufacturers from South Korea and other advanced nations. Nowadays, domestic manufacturers have taken back much of the market and the quality of their products is equal to that of developed nations. I admit disadvantages still exist in the high-end market, but there is no denying the gap is quickly diminishing," Wang said.