Prefabricated Housing Going Overseas
Prefabricated housing going overseas refers to the phenomenon where China's 'prefabricated houses' (modular buildings), leveraging multiple advantages, have seen increased recognition in overseas markets and a significant growth in export volume. Here are the details:
Export Status: Against the backdrop of growing global demand for digital infrastructure construction, China's export of 'prefabricated houses' has surged. Taking Dongguan Port in Guangdong as an example, modular houses in standard container sizes are being shipped to the ASEAN market. These building modules undergo complete processes such as water and electricity installation and interior decoration in factories and can be assembled on-site upon arrival. Judging from order data, the enthusiasm is high. In the first seven months of this year, Shatian Customs under Huangpu Customs supervised the export of 23 batches of modular houses with a total value of 548 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.3 times. Guangdong CIMC Construction Manufacturing Co., Ltd., as a leading enterprise, offers diverse products and covers markets in more than 20 countries and regions. Its overseas orders continue to grow, and multiple key projects have been successfully delivered, with modular building delivery value reaching 59.772 million yuan in the first half of this year. According to data from the General Administration of Customs, from 2015 to 2025, China's export volume of prefabricated buildings nearly tripled over a decade, and the growth rate in the first quarter of 2026 was as high as 45%.
Export Advantages: Taking the example of British merchants purchasing modular elderly care apartments, 63 modules were shipped from a Chinese factory and completed on-site hoisting in the UK in just two weeks after arrival, with a significant price advantage. In Papua New Guinea, 84 modules shipped from China were transformed into fully functional hotels, saving a large amount of overseas labor costs, with a more certain and faster cost recovery period, leading to continuous repurchases by owners.
Technical Threshold: The technical threshold for prefabricated housing going overseas lies in precision. In factories, the position of each steel bar and the coordinates of each screw hole are digitally defined, and machines work according to the drawings with millimeter-level precision. Laser scanners perform three-dimensional positioning and real-time correction for each module. Compared with traditional construction techniques, modular buildings have advantages such as short construction periods, controllable quality, energy efficiency, environmental protection, and ease of maintenance. However, this model places extremely high demands on the industrial base, requiring support from technical systems, production systems, and industrial clusters.
