In October 2025, leading Chinese steel structure enterprise Jinggong Steel Structure (600496.SH) achieved remarkable overseas results: securing a ~RMB1.23 billion Saudi Qiddiya Cultural and Art Center order and RMB5 billion in Q3 new overseas orders (up 87.3% YoY), exceeding its 2024 full-year overseas order target and demonstrating Chinese steel structure enterprises’ core competitiveness in the international high-end market.
According to the announcement released by Jinggong Steel Structure on October 23, the signed Qiddiya Cultural and Art Center project in Saudi Arabia has a contract value of 650 million Saudi Riyals, equivalent to approximately RMB1.23 billion, accounting for 6.7% of the company's latest audited operating income. Positioned as an important cultural landmark in Saudi Arabia, the project will become a core carrier integrating art exhibitions and cultural exchanges upon completion, with milestone significance for the development of the local cultural industry.
Notably, this is not the first time Jinggong Steel Structure has deployed in the Saudi market. In June 2024, the company signed the Dammam Stadium project in Saudi Arabia with a contract value of US$117 million (equivalent to RMB844 million); in March 2025, it undertook the steel structure renovation project of King Fahd Stadium; in July 2025, it secured another order for the Jeddah Stadium and surrounding sports village project in Saudi Arabia, worth approximately RMB550 million. In just over a year, Jinggong Steel Structure has accumulated more than RMB2.6 billion in orders in the Saudi market, forming a stable rhythm of project implementation.
As a high-end cultural building, the Qiddiya Cultural and Art Center project imposes strict requirements on the design accuracy, construction difficulty, and environmental standards of steel structures. Jinggong Steel Structure successfully met the core demands of the project for long-span structures and millimeter-level installation precision, relying on its team of nearly 1,000 certified welders (more than 500 of whom hold international standard certificates), a full range of internationally authoritative certification qualifications, and accumulated experience in modular construction technology. Previously, the company has established a good reputation through efficient performance in projects such as the Dammam Stadium in Saudi Arabia, laying the foundation for the renewal of this order.
From January to September 2025, Jinggong Steel Structure signed 173 new contracts with a total value of RMB17.98 billion, a year-on-year increase of 4.8%; among them, overseas business has become the core growth driver, with new orders reaching RMB5 billion, a year-on-year surge of 87.3%, and exceeding the total overseas orders of 2024 (RMB3 billion). From the perspective of quarterly data, overseas orders had reached RMB3.66 billion by the end of the second quarter, a year-on-year increase of 94.1%, accounting for 29% of the total orders, and the contribution of the overseas market continued to rise.
At the same time, the company's production capacity release and order growth have formed a positive interaction. In the first three quarters of 2025, the steel structure sales volume of Jinggong Steel Structure reached 1.18 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 34.6%, of which the sales volume from July to September was 345,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 11.8%, and the production end effectively supported the delivery needs of overseas projects.
The explosive growth of Jinggong Steel Structure's overseas business stems from the accumulation of years of internationalization layout. Since establishing the International Business Department in 2008, the company has gradually built an international certification system covering American standards, Russian standards, and European standards, established a professional team familiar with international engineering specifications, and undertaken more than 50 large-scale overseas landmark projects, including the Lusail Stadium, the Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia, and Hong Kong International Airport, forming profound technical precipitation and brand recognition.
From the perspective of the market environment, the Middle East region is experiencing an upsurge in infrastructure construction. Taking Saudi Arabia as an example, super projects such as the NEOM (New Future City) with a total investment of US$500 billion are under intensive construction, creating strong demand for high-end building materials such as steel structures. Jinggong Steel Structure has accurately seized this opportunity and continuously made breakthroughs in fields such as stadiums, cultural buildings, and transportation hubs through the strategy of "deepening core markets and focusing on landmark projects", effectively avoiding the competitive pressure in the domestic market while ensuring the profitability and payment collection quality of orders.
In the international engineering market, technical standards and compliance systems are key to market access. The success of Jinggong Steel Structure is attributed to its early layout of international certifications, multilingual technical teams, and localized service networks, which provides important reference for domestic steel structure enterprises: only by meeting the technical specifications, environmental requirements, and labor standards of different countries can enterprises stand out in the competition for high-end projects.
Different from the extensive expansion model, Jinggong Steel Structure has chosen to conduct in-depth layout in core Middle East markets such as Saudi Arabia. By continuously undertaking similar landmark projects, it has formed a positive cycle of "demonstration effect - word-of-mouth communication - order renewal". This focused strategy not only reduces market development costs but also quickly accumulates regional construction experience to adapt to local special needs such as climate and geology.
Currently, the competition in the domestic construction market is intensifying, and the overseas market has become an important growth engine for steel structure enterprises. The practice of Jinggong Steel Structure shows that overseas business can not only bring scale expansion but also improve technical level and brand influence through participation in high-end projects, forming a development pattern of "domestic and international dual circulation". With the in-depth advancement of the "Belt and Road" Initiative, the infrastructure demand in regions such as the Middle East and Southeast Asia will continue to release, and Chinese steel structure enterprises with international competitiveness are expected to gain more market share.
In the future, with the advancement of projects such as the Qiddiya Cultural and Art Center in Saudi Arabia, the brand influence of Jinggong Steel Structure in the Middle East market will be further enhanced. For the industry, this case not only demonstrates the technical strength of China's steel structure industry but also outlines a clear path for Made in China to transform into "Intelligent Manufacturing + International Services".
