China's machinery industry experienced expanded growth in both production and sales volumes in the January-August period of this year, a senior official with the China Machinery Industry Federation said in Beijing on Sept 23.

During the period, the industry's production volume grew by 26.42 percent to reach 10.66 trillion yuan ($1.67 trillion), while sales volume increased by 26.16 percent to stand at 10.4 trillion yuan, according to Wang Ruixiang, the federation's president.

In June, the industry's output value hit a record 1.5 trillion yuan, Wang said at an ongoing campaign aiming to promote China's equipment being distributed throughout the world.

Between 2001 and 2010, the industry's total output value grew from 1.44 trillion yuan to 14.38 trillion yuan, registering an average annual growth rate of 25 percent on the heels of a series of policies issued by the State Council, or China's Cabinet, which aimed to stimulate and invigorate the development of the country's equipment manufacturing industry.

Statistics show that the number of large-scale enterprises engaged in the machinery industry rose from 34,000 in 2001 to 107,000 in 2010, with their assets expanding from 2 trillion yuan to 10 trillion yuan.

Last year, industry's production and sales volumes each exceeded 14 trillion yuan.

Additionally, the machinery industry's self-sufficiency rate increased from 70 percent in 2001 to 85 percent last year.

So far, China's annual production of electricity generating equipment has exceeded 1 trillion kilowatts for five consecutive years, making up half of the world's total.

In 2009, China produced and sold over 13 million units of automobiless, taking the top position worldwide for the first time. In 2000, China manufactured only 2.07 million units of automobiless.

But Wang warned that China still has a long way to go before achieving its goal of being a country with a strong and competitive machinery industry.

In the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015), the industry faces the challenges of structure readjustment, production method transformation, and independent innovation improvement.

Song Xiaogang, the federation's executive vice president, also stressed that China still needs to enhance investment in research and development in the industry.

He noted that between 2011 and 2015 Chinese enterprises in the sector need to improve independent innovation to lay a solid foundation for further development, as well as focus on the production of high-efficiency electricity generating, medical care, and disaster relief effort equipments.

The industry also needs to pay more attention to energy conservation and emissions reduction, he added.

He said the industry's long-term goal is to become the No. 3 in the world in terms of market share of major products.