Industrial Cluster: A Visit To Huaiyang District, Zhoukou City, Hat Kingdom

In recent years, the central and western regions, as the strategic hinterland of the domestic big cycle, have ushered in a major opportunity to undertake industrial transfer and accelerate their own development. "Ruineng clothing hat" is an enterprise transformed by "transfer". It produces tens of millions of hats and thousands of styles a year, which has become the "new pillar" of the economic development of central counties.

　　 The great shift of "hat kingdom"

The reporter walked into the Ruineng clothing and hat factory in Huaiyang District, Zhoukou City, Henan Province, as if entering the "hat kingdom". Thousands of hats of different colors and styles are produced here and produced by famous brands in Europe, America, Japan and South Korea, and are exported to China and abroad.

In the intelligent embroidery workshop, a set of intelligent embroidery machines quickly embroider on the cap piece, making a "Deng Deng Deng" sound, embroidering a beautiful pattern. Each embroidery machine can complete more than 200 hats embroidery workload in one hour.

When the reporter saw Ren Jiqing, a merchandiser, on the right side of his computer were 35 kinds of hat samples, and he was dealing with the hat style modification opinions from French customers. "Overseas customers first place the order to the sales branch of the company in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu Province, and then the colleagues of the sales branch translate the foreign mail into Chinese and transfer it to our merchandiser to arrange and follow up the production." Ren Jiqing said that from the morning to 3 p.m., he handled 20000 orders for hats from the United States, France, Australia and Chile for most of the day.

"The company has 3000 to 4000 new hats on the market every year." Tang Shujing, general manager of Ruineng, said that in the first quarter of this year, the company completed the production and delivery of 4 million hat orders, doubling the number of orders over the same period of the same period, and the order volume this year is expected to reach 12 million.

Since 2011, Tang Shujing has successively transferred its business in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu Province, to Huaiyang. Now, the company's R & D, design, production and other links have been transferred to Huaiyang, the company's headquarters has been changed to Huaiyang. The former "headquarters" of Zhangjiagang only left sales branch for negotiation and undertaking overseas business.

　　 From "Peacock Flies Southeast" to "geese return"

As the founder of Ruineng clothing hat, Tang Shujing frankly told reporters that the enterprise should be built in Huaiyang. "Compared with the coastal areas, Huaiyang has abundant human resources, superior transportation location, high-speed rail, river transportation and other transportation modes, which are the key production factors of labor-intensive hat enterprises." Tang Shujing said.

It is not only a vivid reflection of the "back to China" industry of the "Peacock" to move back to the southeast of China.

In 1993, 17-year-old Tang Shujing left his hometown of Huaiyang and went to Dongguan shoe factory in Guangdong Province to work. "Thanks to China's huge demographic dividend, after the reform and opening up, some foreign-funded enterprises have transferred labor-intensive industries such as shoes and hats to the southeast coast. When I went to work in Guangdong, these industries were at their peak." Tang Shujing said that with the rise of production costs and industrial upgrading in China's southeast coastal areas, after 2000, some foreign-funded enterprises have successively transferred to Southeast Asia, and some enterprises have also transferred to the central and western regions of China.

With years of experience and contacts in the market, Tang Shujing resigned from the enterprise in 2004 and came to the Yangtze River Delta from the Pearl River Delta. He established Ruineng Textile Co., Ltd. in Zhangjiagang, mainly undertaking Japanese hat orders. In 2010, Tang Shujing saw the advantages of abundant labor resources and low labor and land costs in Huaiyang. He rented factories in Huaiyang and tried to transfer hat production lines to the central and western regions.

After more than 10 years of continuous "transfer", the scale of Tang Shujing's factory in Huaiyang has been continuously expanded, covering an area of 4 Mu to 107 mu, and building standardized workshops covering cloth hats, straw hats, felt hats, etc., with an annual production capacity of 30 million.

According to Tang Shujing, Ruineng has 1000 employees in Huaiyang alone. The factory is equipped with dormitory buildings, restaurants and libraries, providing free food and accommodation. In addition, "satellite factories" have been set up in Huaiyang and its surrounding counties, Anhui, Hubei and other places, so that left behind women and the elderly can get employment at home.

　　 "The environment has changed, which is the foundation of my additional investment"

The reporter asked Tang Shujing that he had been making additional investment in a county in the central and western regions. Where did his confidence come from? Tang Shujing said: "the environment has changed." In addition to the great improvement of county infrastructure "hardware" in the central and western regions, the "environment" also includes the improvement of the "software" quality of business environment.

"Last year, the government handled the real estate ownership certificate for the whole process of the company's factory buildings. It was completed in a week, and the company didn't go there." Tang Shujing said that the reason is that the government has introduced a "help agency" mechanism to free enterprises from the tedious affairs. As long as the enterprise calls the government's assistant agent in the mobile app or by calling the government's agent, the government can do the whole process, and the business can be done "without running once".

At present, the clothing and hat industry represented by Ruineng has become one of the eight pillar industries in Huaiyang. Among the 8 pillar industries in Huaiyang, 7 are "out of the blue" industries transferred from Huaiyang, including special glass, educational supplies, plastic products, and biodegradable new materials.

Jin zunjie, director of Huaiyang district business office, said that it was the improvement of human resources, land and other factors, as well as the improvement of software and hardware, that made more and more counties in the central and western regions have the comprehensive advantages of undertaking the industrial transfer from the eastern region. Ruineng service hat is the most vivid "Annotation" in this process.

Now, Ruineng has set up a complete hat industry chain in Huaiyang, such as carton factory and printing factory. It is constantly strengthening its R & D and design capabilities, striving to create its own brand, actively expanding new sales channels such as e-commerce and live delivery, striving to integrate with local development and move towards a new journey of industrial upgrading.

(source: Xinhua News Agency)