Key Industry Insights from the 29th National Forging & Stamping Association Secretary-General Meeting (2026)

Hosted by Hubei Forging & Stamping Association and Wuhan Foundry, Forging & Heat Treatment Industry Association, the 29th National Forging & Stamping Association Secretary-General Meeting was successfully held in Huangshi on  2026. The summit gathered leadership and delegates from the China Forging & Stamping Association and 18 regional industry associations, together with senior executives from leading forging and technology enterprises. Centering on regional industry status quo, market challenges, technological transformation, and future development strategies, the meeting delivered in-depth industry judgments and unified development guidelines for China’s forging and metal forming sector in 2026 and the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

The opening session reviewed the 2025 industry work achievements and released key arrangements for 2026 industrial promotion and exhibition activities. As one of the world’s top three metal forming exhibitions following Europe’s EuroBLECH and America’s FABTECH, the China International Metal Forming Exhibition covers six core sectors including forging, stamping, sheet metal processing and industrial manufacturing. Industry officials formally invited nationwide enterprises to attend the 40th Anniversary Celebration of China Forging & Stamping Association and the 2026 China International Metal Forming Exhibition held in Kunshan and Shanghai from June to September, aiming to boost cross-regional industrial communication, technological exchange and business cooperation. Meanwhile, technology enterprises shared integrated closed-die forging solutions to support intelligent upgrading of traditional forging production lines.

The core exchange session focused on regional operational conditions, common industry pain points, transformation practices and future trends. Across the country, China’s forging industry presents obvious structural differentiation in 2026, featuring steady overall recovery, segmented market boom, rising comprehensive costs, and accelerated industrial reshuffling.

In North China, Zhangqiu and Dingxiang represent core flange and general forging clusters. Zhangqiu’s forging output value maintains stable growth, yet local manufacturers are facing continuous cost pressure from rising labor, energy and social insurance expenses. Labor shortage and high labor costs have severely compressed profit margins for small and medium-sized enterprises. Although enterprises show strong willingness for equipment renewal and technological upgrading, the overall automation, digitalization and intelligent level still lag behind international advanced standards. Traditional multi-variety and small-batch forging modes remain mainstream, restricting production efficiency and refined manufacturing capability. Market segmentation is prominent: wind power, steel ball and ship supporting forgings maintain strong growth momentum, while petrochemical, engineering machinery and conventional automotive forgings face sluggish demand. Carbon steel flange markets continue to shrink, forcing traditional manufacturers to transform toward high-end aluminum and magnesium alloy forging products.

As China’s top forging province, Shandong maintains steady industrial development with leading enterprises breaking core technical barriers in heavy-duty large-scale forgings. A large number of specialized and innovative enterprises have formed solid technical advantages in segmented tracks and achieved positive growth in 2025. However, the industry is undergoing intense polarization. Leading enterprises expand continuously through heavy-asset intelligent transformation, while medium and small ordinary carbon steel forging factories struggle with homogeneous competition and shrinking profits. The industry has reached a consensus on future transformation: shifting from single forging production to the integrated model of “forgings + precision machining + component assembly”. In addition, increasingly standardized supervision on industry associations further promotes standardized and high-quality industrial operation across the region.

Central China’s Henan forging industry achieves restorative growth overall. Driven by newly launched industrial projects, the provincial forging output exceeded 1.1 million tons in 2025, with major growth from new energy vehicles, commercial vehicles, power generation equipment, shipbuilding and military supporting parts. Multiple heavy-duty forging equipment projects including ring rolling mills and 8,000-ton hot forging presses have been put into operation or under construction, continuously optimizing regional production capacity. Industry experts predict further improved industrial concentration in 2026, with backward small and medium-sized enterprises phased out under environmental and capital pressure, while industrial chain supplementation, equipment upgrading and market polarization will become mainstream trends.

Hebei, Anhui, Jiangxi and other regional industries maintain stable operation with their own characteristics. Hebei’s forging capacity remains steady with strict approval policies for new projects under environmental protection supervision. Anhui has absorbed a large number of transferred aluminum alloy forging enterprises from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, realizing full-capacity production in partial production lines, though overall industry profits decline due to severe market involution. Western and Northeast industrial clusters including Shenyang, Shaanxi and Chongqing rely on local aviation, military, new energy and equipment manufacturing foundations to expand high-end forging supporting business. Nevertheless, widespread challenges persist across these regions: insufficient basic innovation capability, aging frontline workers, shortage of high-end technical talents, weak independent controllability of core industrial chain links, and high corporate accounts receivable restricting capital turnover.

Dingxiang, known as China’s Forging Capital and global flange manufacturing base, occupies a pivotal position in the national flange industry. In 2025, its total forging output reached 1.9 million tons, accounting for 48% of China’s steel flange output, 60% of national wind power flange production and over 30% of national flange exports. The local industry is advancing toward high-end, intelligent, green and clustered development, with rapidly growing demand for wind power, nuclear power and aerospace special forgings. Meanwhile, the region is confronted with talent shortage, mid-to-low-end homogeneous competition, high logistics costs and slowing foreign trade growth. In 2026, Dingxiang will focus on digital transformation, quality upgrading, green low-carbon reform and foreign trade diversification, and calls for national associations to build long-term cooperation mechanisms for technology sharing, talent co-cultivation, joint standard formulation and coordinated market development.

Industry-wide common problems summarized at the meeting include rising comprehensive costs, insufficient intelligent transformation, talent gap, homogeneous low-end competition and shrinking profit margins. The entire forging sector has entered a typical low-margin era, forcing enterprises to shift from simple capacity expansion to refined management, technological innovation and structural upgrading.

In the final summary speech, the Secretary-General of China Forging & Stamping Association clarified the core development direction for the industry during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. He emphasized that industrial services must upgrade from single technical support to comprehensive services covering management consultation, compliance guidance, corporate culture construction and talent training. All forging enterprises need to optimize eight core capabilities: precise enterprise and product positioning, adaptive process and intelligent equipment layout, lean management under low-margin conditions, modern corporate culture, standardized compliance operation, systematic quality standards and independent talent cultivation.

The meeting confirmed that cross-regional association cooperation, resource sharing, joint technical research and industry self-discipline will be key driving forces for high-quality industrial development. To strengthen national industry linkage, the conference formally decided that the 30th National Forging & Stamping Association Secretary-General Meeting will be hosted by Dingxiang Flange & Forging Association, promoting further coordinated and integrated development of China’s national forging industry.