Jacky Chan is here, then Jet Lee comes, who elsewill come? He is a not movie star, but my viewfinderfocuses on him.
He is a Pragmatic person;
however, he illustrates a colorful future for his people;
He is an ambitious economy-centered man;
whereas he pays equal attention to citizen's living to seek common welfare.
He is Jiang Yuejin,
the mayor of Dongyang city-center of China's largest textile province
Recently, I was honored to haveopportunity to interview him about hisperspective on Dongyang's textile industry.From a small clue one can see the wholepicture, so let's share his visions through histalk:
Q: Dongyang has long been reckonedas one of the best representatives of China's knitting industry, arts and crafts industry,tourism industry and \"Oriental Hollywood\".Therefore, it is safe to say that differentpeople can find different thoughts of heavenhere, so does the businessman of differentfields. In addition, Dongyang governmenthas mapped out a lot of investment projects,which render DongYang an ideal place toinvest. As the mayor of Dongyang, could yougive us an informative introduction of whatkind of investors in what kind of fields wouldyou highly welcome?
A: First, I'd like to say Dongyang ishospitable to everyone, investors or commonpeople.
I always feel proud every time when itcomes to this topic, indeed Dongyang is anamazing place suitable for different investors,I'd like to dwell on it in details:
Dongyang is famous for its knittingindustry, especially its knitted underwear,which are sold widely in China. According tolatest statistics, there are over 700 enterprisesin Dongyang with output value totaled at2.5billion. Thereinto, the number of enterpriseshaving more than 200 and 100-200 employeesis over 30 and 150, respectively. Their productshave gained a rather good popularity in market.What's more, Dongyang itself is also a bigbuyer of materials, so we welcome friendshome and broad to purchase and sell theirproducts in Dongyang.
Dongyang's arts and crafts industry isanother investment area I'd like to highlyrecommend. Nominated as capital of Chinesearts and crafts by China's Ministry of Culturein 1995, Dongyang now has 20 advancedartists, six of which have already been awardedas national level artists. Dongyang' s arts andcrafts don't merely feast domestic peoplebut also set a unique taste for world's artcircle. Engaging in business like this area isdefinitely a lucrative investment;
Speaking of our Hengdian Movie Center,I bet lots of images of famous stars andmovies like Hero, Opium War, Promise, etc,which were shot here may come into yourminds and intrigue your interests. That, fromanother angle, demonstrates that celebrityeffect alone can bring immediate and decentprofits, not to mention to its relevant facilitiesand markets, like tourism which is alreadybooming now! It might be interesting to letyou know, Jacky Chen, Jet Lee are in thismovie center today for a new movie!
Apart from those mentioned-above, thereare also lots of investment area, like man-made fiber industry, pharmaceutical industryand magnetic material industry, etc.
We sincerely welcome foreign investorsto do business in Dongyang, especiallyin Knowledge-intensive industries andinfrastructure construction.
All in all, Dongyang boasts a soundbusiness environment!
Q: At present, Dongyang makes greatefforts to implement its \"rejuvenatingcity by means of industry and business\"development strategy. As we know, onlybacked by industries with competitive edge,can a city maintain a strong momentum andstamina to advance, Dongyang is famous forits knitting textile industry, can you tell uswhat is your definition of the textile industry's significance in this strategic movement?And what is the point of growth and ultimategoal?
A: As we mentioned earlier, Dongyang isindeed famous for its textile industry. Makinggreat efforts to accelerate textile industry'sdevelopment complies with national macro-policy and overall situation.
In terms of significances, they areembodied as follows:
It can provide lots of jobs, instill newenergy into agriculture and accumulate fundsfor development of Dongyang as well. Youknow, textile industry itself features labor-intensive, suitable for the employmentof rural non-agricultural sectors, andcontinuously absorb surplus rural labors; withthe development of this industry, the profitsobtained can be used in construction of cityand increasing the income of poor farmers.Except that, other relevant advantages arealso evident, such as: reducing tax burdenon farmers, establishing a convergence ofthe social security system so as to alleviateincome disparity between urban and ruralpeople.
Aligning ourdevelopment with nationalmacro-interests is ofparamount significant thingwe prefer to do.
With regards to thenew growth area, I'd liketo reiterate that Dongyang's knitted-product hasalways been one of themarket leaders in superiorreliability for quite a longtime. And we already havemore than 700 textile companies, but theyare mostly small and medium-sized plantsor stores. In this movement we endeavor tomerge and integrate those relatively weakcompanies to enhance our whole strength andcore competitiveness.
Dongyang also prides itself on itsmost influential cultural industry, so we areconsidering combining those two competitiveindustries to get better performance and afeatured operation, which is another newgrowth area; the newly-built World TradeCenter, who strives to bring out the best inthese two industries, is a vivid example ofthis form. Furthermore, we also plan to domore businesses with foreign friends, to sellor to purchase. 1 am sure that we will benefita lot from those businesses.
Q: Comparative advantage is one of themost important factors to stay competitive,what's your perspective about Dongyang'scompetitiveness?
A: In short, Dongyang's textile industryis armed with state-of-the-art techniques andup-to-minute information:
With advanced knitting skills andstringent quality testing, Dongyng's textileproducts have been consistently rated as best-in-class, making it the supplier of choice forcustomers around China.
Secondly, Dongyang, located inhinterland of Zhejiang province, is the hub oftransportation and information flow, plus itspeople have a strong Commercial sense. Sothere are over 700 enterprises in Dongyangproper with OUtput value totaled at 2.5billion, and in other city's kitting productsmarket, 50% share are dominated byDongyang businessmen, in some places thefigure even climbs to 80%, so its informationupdates speedly.
Thirdly, Dongyang people are quiteopen to new things and glad to welcomeforeign businessmen to come with theircommodities, advanced technologies andmanagement experiences.
These three advantages are our magicweapons!
Q: Speaking of international trade,China's textile-related products export isfacing tough challenges, which consist oftwo parts: one from our destination countries,who adopt a series of safeguard and anti-dumping measures, the other from our rivalswho resort to boycotting China's products,under such circumstance, what kind ofcountermeasures would you like to take?
A: We decide to solve this problemthrough two dimensions:
First, as 1 mentioned before, we willendeavor to enhance our brand establishmentand improve our existing brands position,meanwhile, MA and integrate those smallor medium-sized companies to beef up ourwhole strength and core competitiveness;optimize technical structure and control thenumber of export products and prices.
Quality is a solid, bottom-linecontributor to a product, so we will paymore attentions to that. Cutting costs andincreasing speed-to-market, while improvingagility and enhancing total operationalefficiencies along the way. I bet no one canresist the temptation of products with sucha high quality. Besides, we can actively dealwith technical barriers to trade: enterprisesshould pay more attention to relevanttrends in a timely manner so as to improveproduction technologies.
Secondly, we can foster domestic marketto cushion the international trade shock,domestic market is always our frontier thatwe will never ignore.
As long as we can estimate changingsituation appropriately and take measures inflexible way, we will never be impaired.
Q: The soured relationship betweenChina and other countries in terms ofexport of textile product is likely to lead toenlargement of domestic market. That meansanother problem: we have plenty of strongcompetitors, like Yiwu and Wenzhou whoare already a mature comprehensive marketand dedicated to improve \"made-in China\"image, respectively. So how does Dongyangsurvive and even triumph over yourcounterparts in such stinging competition?
A: I'd like to elaborate it from thefollowing aspects:
a) Government support: Dongyanggovernment always attaches importance totextile industry's development, even putsit as one of the core of our \"rejuvenatingcity by means of industry and business\"development strategy, creates environment toaccelerate its development, like the newly-built World Trade Center which combinestextile industry with art industry to performfeatured, unique operation;
b) Industrial base: Dongyang isfamous for its knitting industry, especially itsknitted underwear, which are sold widely inChina. Their products have gained a rathergood popularity in market. What's more,Dongyang itself also has huge potentialfor buying, so Dongyang has a strongindustry base and is rich in lots of businessopportunities.
c) Regional environment: Dongyang,located in hinterland of Zhejiang province,is the hub of transportation and informationflow, plus its people have a strongCommercial sense, so that commercialupdate can be translated into productivityquickly.
d) Market positioning: Dongyangfocuses on construction of specializedmarket and devotes to breed more brands toconquer market.
Leveraging these four favorable factors,Dongyang could find its irreplaceable placein market!
Q: What's yourstrategic marketingplan: to compete withthose cities like Yiwuin the same field orto operate businesscomplementally withthem?
A: Swim orsink, that's a widelyrecognised businessphilosophy, but not mine. I see more thanthat. In my opinion, the real competitionshould be ultimate in win-win. Our finalgoal doesn't rely on beating our rivals out ofmarket, on contrary, we expect them to workeven more dedicatedly and become moreprofessional. You know, Chinese market ishuge, everyone who's wise enough can findhis place, and to eat or to be eaten shouldnot be the primary concern we have now.What we should do now is to consider howwe can find our advantages and how we cando better in our own specialty market, inthis case, the whole Chinese market will beflourishing and every company can coexistpeacefully and complementally in healthycompetition environment.
Q: Except distribution, productionis another important part. It's easy to findout that Dongyang is densely-populated byfactories and stores, it really seems like abooming picture, but from another angle,it can be dubbed as disorderly competition.In fact, Dongyang's textile factories have already formed a cluster, just lack of overall layout and management, making it hard to obtain a good competition as a whole, so have you ever thought about this?
A: Yes, you're right. Actually wealready realized it and listed it among ourgovernment agenda. Macro-control andguide should be involved at the beginningof the process in order to harness the powerof brand construction so as to improveDongyang's textile industry as a whole.
Q: Dongyang enjoys a sound businessenvironment, and has lots of industries withcompetitive edge, additionally, governmentputs forward a great of favorable polices towoo foreign businessmen, why do you lay somuch scores on them?
A: Three major reasons led us to thisdecision:
First, they can usher in many advancedtechnologies and proven managementexperiences whichare in favor of ourimprovement.
Secondly, for thetime being, China isfacing increasinglyintensive pressure fromfast-growing export, wehave to figure out how toavoid or minimize thosenegative impacts. Wooingforeign investment viasome favorable polices isone of the best form of makeshift conduciveto both sides.
Thirdly, everything is inherent indialectic: Dongyang has capacity ofspreading its products across country andaround world, at the same time, Dongyangitself is also a big buyer of materials and hasa huge potential of consuming a wide rangeof products. Till now, there were a largenumber of foreign friends to do businesseshere, for example, recently, an Egypt SedcoreSpinning, S.A.E Company whose cotton andfine-count cotton yarn is the best in termsof quality, came to Dongyang intending toseek corporation. That's a good trend andcompatible to Central Government's \"Reducetrade surplus\" policy, so we welcome friendshome and abroad to purchase and sell theirproducts in Dongyang.
It is said we are all pilgrims on thesame journey-but some pilgrims havebetter road maps, 1 think, Dongyangcitizen are definitely fortunate, becausetheir mayor really presents them awonderful blue map!