(Yicai Global) Oct. 25 -- Zhengzhou Suda Coal Machinery Service Co. [NNEQ:833293] opened a second-hand equipment deployment platform, e-zh.com, yesterday to promote the circulation of coal mining equipment in the industry.

There were 7,869 coal companies with designated size in China in 2012, and the number dropped to 5,067 last year, 2802 less in five years. About 1,000 coal mines are on the List of Coal Mines to be Closed in 2017 issued by 12 provinces, including Shanxi, Gansu, Inner Mongolia and Henan provinces, Securities Daily reported, citing China Coal Association statistics.

Per the Opinions of the State Council of China on Reducing Overcapacity in the Coal Industry to Achieve Development by Solving the Difficulties, coal production capacity must fall by 500 million tons within 3 to 5 years from last year. The Opinions also require the coal industry's aid to reduce overcapacity through the circulation of coal-mining equipment.

E-zh.com is a second-hand equipment deployment platform which seeks to build the biggest coal-mining machine sharing platform in China. It is a convergence zone for assessment agencies, financial leasing agencies, coal mining machine manufacturers, machine parts suppliers with a property rights trading center and a professional second-hand equipment trading and sharing platform.

The platform will focus on both auto parts and coal-mining machines in the next two years. It will be a major tool for coal mining-machine sharing and Internet Plus, as well as representing the firm's core competitiveness in the coal mining machinery market. With its large market capacity, e-zh.com is set to become a Taobao-esque emporium. "Our firm is also in transition," the group's chairman said.

Zhengzhou Coal Mining Machinery Group Co., Ltd. [SHA:601717; HK:0564] holds a 34 percent stake in Zhengzhou Suda.