Renowned fund managers' latest strategies! Manufacturing industry going global may become the main investment theme

Source: Securities Times Network Author: Wang Xiaoqian

Against the backdrop of the market style continuing to rotate, an investment thesis centered on “manufacturing going global” is gradually moving from the periphery to the mainstream, leaving clear marks on the performance of a number of fund managers.

Different from the stage-based opportunities in past periods around the export cycle, this round of the market may be closer to a spillover process driven by industrial capability. China’s manufacturing position in the global industrial chain is changing.

In the view of multiple industry insiders, this direction is shifting from a “optional logic” to an “important variable.” The underlying drivers come not only from demand recovery, but also from a systematic adjustment of industrial structure and competitive landscape.

In this wave of industrial change, Qian Jianjiang, a fund manager at Harvest-Bae Rui Fund, is among the earlier investors who laid out the strategy in depth. Long before the manufacturing going-global thesis was widely recognized by the market, he relied on his keen judgment of industrial trends, focused on this main theme opportunity, built a systematic research framework, and continuously validated the logic and delivered performance through long-term practice.

Strong profitability in overseas business; industry diffusion accelerates

Judging from market performance, manufacturing going global has shown relatively strong structural characteristics.

According to Wind data, since September 2024, the manufacturing going-global index has risen 77.24%, significantly outperforming the CSI All Share Index over the same period. At the same time, financial data have also shown synchronized changes: in the first half of 2025, the average gross margin of overseas business for A-share listed companies reached 29.2%, higher than 24.7% for domestic business.

This profitability gap is even more pronounced across multiple sub-industries. Taking the commercial vehicle sector as an example, some companies’ unit profitability in the domestic market is still at a relatively low level, while overseas markets have become the main source of profit. In the bus segment, overseas profitability per unit is significantly higher than domestic, becoming an important support for earnings growth.

Qian Jianjiang analyzes that, in terms of industry distribution, manufacturing going global is no longer limited to a single track; instead, it shows characteristics of multi-point diffusion.

In high-end manufacturing sectors such as new energy vehicles, power equipment, and communications electronics, overseas expansion continues to be driven by technical and industrial-chain advantages. In traditional manufacturing sectors such as construction machinery, heavy trucks, and machine tools, with domestic demand stabilizing, the growth focus gradually shifts overseas. As for consumer manufacturing such as home appliances and light industry textile and apparel, they extend the value chain by running both capacity going global and brand going global in parallel.

Overall, overseas business is gradually transforming from the former “revenue supplement” into a “profit center” for some manufacturing enterprises, and it has started to provide dual support for both sector valuations and performance.

From “import substitution” to “supplying the world”: structural changes

Beyond performance results, this round of manufacturing going global is driven more deeply by changes in industrial logic.

Qian Jianjiang points out that, based on the historical evolution of industrial development, from 2015 to 2020, Chinese manufacturing was mostly in the “import substitution” stage, with growth primarily relying on domestic demand, while key technologies and core components still had external dependencies.

After 2020, as global supply chains were restructured under the shock of the pandemic, China’s manufacturing advantages in stability and efficiency were further amplified, gradually shifting from “supplementing supply” to “key supply.”

At the same time, domestic demand faces some pressure amid adjustments in the real estate cycle. Industry competition has intensified, and companies proactively “go global” has become an important path for seeking incremental growth.

More importantly, China’s manufacturing competitive advantages are undergoing structural changes. Qian Jianjiang’s research finds that China’s manufacturing competitive advantages have long shifted from a single cost advantage to a “systemic advantage” built from multiple factors, including a supply chain system, an engineers’ dividend, the efficiency of industrial workers, and infrastructure networks. This capability cannot be replicated by a single company; it is the result of long-term evolution of industrial clusters.

On the demand side, emerging markets are still in stages of infrastructure development and consumption upgrading, while the U.S. and Europe markets have stable demand and room for brand premiums. Compared with domestic conditions, overseas markets offer a more favorable environment in terms of demand structure and competitive landscape.

As a result, the meaning of manufacturing going global has evolved from “expanding the sales radius” to “participating in global pricing in a more advantageous competitive environment.”

Shenwan Hongyuan Securities also said that, with the fifth round of global industrial transfer, China is rapidly crossing over from a “capacity exporting country” to a country exporting the entire industrial chain of “manufacturing + services.” In this process, going global for production services is both a rigid necessity to ensure manufacturing lands and the core lever for enterprises to break through growth bottlenecks.

The future winners of manufacturing going global may be those enterprises that can extend toward both ends of the curve—toward the left end, outputting high value-added technologies and R&D, such as Chinese auto companies reversing exporting intelligent driving and battery technologies to German giants; toward the right end, building brands, services, and ecosystems, such as establishing charging and swapping network and official used-car certification systems in Europe.

Limited product supply; the “minority” has already laid out

Although related sectors have already seen some gains, in terms of product deployment and capital structure, “manufacturing going global” may still be in a gradual diffusion phase.

On one hand, the theme spans multiple industries and links in the industrial chain, making it difficult to express comprehensively through a single index or a single product. On the other hand, its logic involves multiple dimensions such as global demand, industrial migration, and enterprise capabilities, which sets higher requirements for the research framework.

Against this backdrop, some fund managers have started to build systematic research frameworks around this direction. Among them, Qian Jianjiang, a fund manager at Harvest-Bae Rui Fund, is one of the earlier investors to take deep positions in this field.

It is understood that Qian Jianjiang holds a master’s degree in systems engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and has 10 years of experience in securities practice. In his early years, he worked at Guoyuan Securities and the Research Institute of Pacific Securities as a machinery industry researcher, deeply focused on the manufacturing sector. He has a relatively deep understanding of industrial logic, technological iteration, and competitive landscape in sub-sectors such as automotive components, construction machinery, and high-end manufacturing.

Years of research experience in the manufacturing industry have given him a solid foundation for capturing the investment opportunities of manufacturing going global.

In terms of methodology, Qian Jianjiang splits the investment system into two layers: “value pricing” and “marginal tracking.” The former focuses on evaluating business models and long-term profitability from the perspectives of industry and company operations; the latter dynamically adjusts the portfolio by continuously tracking changes in fundamentals, capital flows, and transaction structure.

In specific practice, Qian Jianjiang places greater emphasis on starting from industrial trends, using bottom-up research to select targets, and completing the transformation from “logic judgment” to “performance realization” through continuous validation.

Under this framework, enterprises’ global competitiveness, capacity layout capability, and their pricing ability in overseas markets become core considerations.

And this systematic research framework has also received validation through long-term real investment operations, becoming an intuitive proof of Qian Jianjiang’s ability to capture the dividend of manufacturing going global.

As of the end of February 2026, the return of Harvest-Bae Rui Consumer Growth Hybrid (001069) managed by him has been 95.21% since July 11, 2024, far exceeding the performance benchmark increase of 16.70% over the same period.

This further confirms his professional investment capability and his deep understanding and precise positioning of this core theme of manufacturing going global.

The main logic is becoming clearer; focus on companies with global competitiveness

At the current point in time, looking ahead to the future investment opportunities of manufacturing going global, Qian Jianjiang has a clear layout strategy.

He believes that manufacturing going global is not only a core investment main theme in the capital market, but also the main melody of China’s manufacturing upgrading at present. This trend is not a short-term market hotspot; it is a long-term industrial wave, and there may still be broad room for investment in the future.

In Qian Jianjiang’s view, the core investment opportunities for manufacturing going global in the future will still likely be concentrated in high-quality companies with core competitive advantages.

He will focus on enterprises that have technological or brand advantages and can establish differentiated competitiveness in global markets. He said that technology and brand are the core for companies to achieve high-end and long-term development in global markets. Companies with proprietary core technologies are expected to secure a place in high-end tracks; companies that successfully build overseas brands are expected to obtain higher valuation premiums and stronger market stickiness. These two types of enterprises will become important forces in manufacturing going global.

At the same time, he also values companies that achieve global layout through capacity going global and channel expansion.

Qian Jianjiang points out that manufacturing going global has entered a “localization” stage. Simply exporting products can hardly address overseas trade barriers and localized demand. By building capacity overseas and setting up localized sales and service channels, enterprises can truly integrate into overseas markets and realize the upgrade from “going out” to “putting down roots.” The growth of such companies is more sustainable.

In addition, Qian Jianjiang also pays attention to Chinese enterprises that have supply capabilities in certain overseas parts of the supply-demand-tightened industrial chain. He analyzes that global industrial chain restructuring is still ongoing, and in some industries overseas markets have supply-demand gaps. Chinese companies, backed by a complete industrial chain and strong production capacity, can become core suppliers for these links. Such enterprises are expected to obtain higher profit levels and more stable supply cooperation relationships, and may see phased investment opportunities.

From “import substitution” to “supplying the world,” Chinese manufacturing has completed a historic leap in industrial development, and the pace of globalization is profoundly reshaping the world’s industrial map.

In Qian Jianjiang’s view, manufacturing going global is not only the core investment main theme in the capital market, but also the main melody of China’s manufacturing upgrading in this era. Accurately identifying high-quality enterprises that can generate sustained “alpha” returns within it is the key to capturing this era’s industrial trend.

Source: Securities Times Fund Research Institute

(Editor: Wen Jing)

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                                                            Fund manager