China’s Civilian Drone Export Rises, Reaches 750M Yuan
For the first five months of this year, China has already exported 160,000 units of civilian drones worth 750 million yuan. The statistic is 69 and 55 times higher than the January and May 2014 figures, respectively.
Officials from the customs of the southern city of Shenzhen stated that a “green channel” was established to facilitate a more efficient clearance of the unmanned vehicle. The area is where 99 percent of the country’s civilian drones are exported from.
DJI, a Shenzhen-based technology company and a leading manufacturer of commercial and recreational drones, comprises nearly 70 percent of the global market share. It lists Europe and North America as its biggest customers.
Meanwhile, military companies are also now adapting unmanned craft to secure a market share as demand increases further.
Industry insiders revealed that state-owned defense contractors are converting their military drones to civilian ones to set foot on the lucrative market.
“Many state-owned defense enterprises have dedicated considerable resources to developing drones, and a large number of private companies have also become involved,” China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp.’s Unmanned Aircraft Research Institute director Ma Hongzhong stated.
The firm, one of China’s defense giants which previously focused on missiles and multiple rocket launcher systems, began to allocate funds in developing drones.
“Several years ago, we were only a research studio. But the company recently expanded it into an institute in order to use the company’s cruise missile experience and expertise in drone research,” Ma shared.
However, Ma pointed out that the conversion is not a simple matter of replacing weapons with nonmilitary features. One must also “reduce the production and operational costs to a level that clients can afford.”
For Yang Shaowen, a senior manager at the country’s unmanned aircraft division at the Aviation Industry Corp., “manufacturers should design drones specifically for the civilian sector rather than simply refitting military ones.”
According to Aircraft Owner and Pilots Association of China secretary-general Zhang Feng, once the industry is fully developed and regulations are properly laid out, the country will need more than 10,000 civilian drones.
The technology has been beneficial in some businesses such as “agricultural pest control, environmental monitoring, geographic surveys, forest patrols, resource exploration and maritime operations.”
Zhang also predicted that “the market value of developing, manufacturing, operating and maintaining these drones will reach 50 billion yuan ($8.18 billion) a year.”
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