A contract was signed to supply Komatsu's heavy duty dump trucks (load capacity 68 tons) to Fushun Coal Mine in Liaoning Province in 1980, and to Huolinhe Coal Mine in Inner Mongolia in 1986.

While China's open-pit coal mines still used large towed trolley trucks to transport mined coal, in the United States and Australia the method of transportation had been changed to large dump trucks to increase productivity. To respond to the increase in energy demand accompanying China's economic development, there was an urgent need to increase coal production, and the remodeling of existing coal mines and the development of new coal mines was being actively advanced.