Toronto Star: Yanbu Chinese women's underwear for the world's small town

Ladies underwear manufacturing industry in China Yanbu is a very serious industry. Allegedly, Yanbu a lingerie products by the local 200 manufacturers jointly manufactured. However, due to the financial crisis, the women's underwear manufacturing industry wants to make up for the loss of overseas exports by making profits in the domestic market.

At a glance, the billboard is full of underwear wearing Western models, lazily overlooking the Chinese coming and going vehicles. This hot and humid town in southern China during the International lingerie Convention, actually has a flirtatious feeling similar to Las Vegas. But do not be fooled by the sight Underwear manufacturing in Yanbu is a very serious industry. Can be said that the city is built underwear: Located in the west of Guangzhou, more than 200 kinds of underwear manufacturers thrive here for decades. Underwear manufacturing provides 20,000 jobs for people.

Part of the global recession is a global reduction in consumer spending: consumers are now paying even more for underwear. This means that manufacturing hubs in southeastern China that rely on export profits are even more difficult, and Yanbu is equally affected.
Chen Wai-keung, chairman of the local industry association and manufacturer, explained: "Big buyers who used to buy high-end underwear now buy middle-grade products, and those who used to buy intermediate-grade products now buy low-grade products." "Decline in revenue and profit Decline, a small number of local businesses even went bankrupt. Therefore, Wei-Qiang Chen said that manufacturers are now busy formulating business plans and strategies to survive the most difficult moments in an emergency crisis. He hopes the economic crisis will soon pass - preferably early next year. But he did not always just wait. With the Eastern European market slipped to the bottom, including Russia. He re-targeted sales to China's domestic market. He could not set the domestic retail price at $ 150 or even as much as $ 300, as in European boutiques. Is the country can sell a little cheaper a little underwear. After all, there are more than 600 million female consumers in China.

"We suffered a huge loss in the Eastern European market, and my point is: try to turn our attention to the extent we can expand in the country." Chen Weiqiang said that the scope to expand as far as possible. If done well, it is estimated that the increase in domestic market profits this year will almost equal the loss in the Eastern European market. He continued, "On the whole, I expect sales to drop just 10-12% this year - a little more for net profit to fall, but our company will still be stable and I'm optimistic about the future." "His optimistic evidence can be seen outside of his top executive office: a small group of construction workers is working on the refurbishment of the main building in South China Sea.

Through the front door, the elevator, almost 1000 employees scattered in this new five-story studio, air-conditioned production between the use of Japanese-made Juki large sewing machine, thousands of lingerie here is made into It's According to Chen Weiqiang, Ms. Lingerie can be used as a barometer of the manufacturing industry in China. What he said was more brilliant than any economist at Wharton, where the underwear industry was the first of its kind - or perhaps the slowest recovery after the financial crisis.

He has worked in the underwear industry for more than 30 years and has five operating agencies. His history dates back to 1980 when the first underwear factory in Yanbu was established. The first underwear factory, run by Frank from Hong Kong Delisi, is now the world's largest manufacturer of lingerie. China had just walked out of Mao's era then - when people did not understand the elegant appearance of men's clothing, ladies did not pay much attention to style. However, the policy of "reform and opening up" put forward by China's leader Deng Xiaoping in 1978 changed everything. This policy also reformed the market system.

After that, Chen Weiqiang as the leader of the local party branch was given the task of opening up the way for the establishment of the first Hong Kong establishment of the Delsey brand in the Mainland. There are two Hong Kong Daisy processing factories, one here and the other in the northern city of Dalian. The operation of the plant during the first year in Yanbu City employs 2,000 workers, produces 14,000,000 pieces of underwear and ships 12,000,000 items to the United States. Washington once again filled in the orders made by the ladies underwear in China, which is undoubtedly the biggest affirmation of the ladies' underwear made in China.

The rest of the history, as they describe it, is where the underwear manufacturing industry takes off.

Today there are 78 or so state-of-the-art factories in the area where the owners and CEOs of the plants - including William Chan - were former personnel who worked for the Dalis factory in Hong Kong.

He remembered that local peasants were accustomed to the style of women's clothing in Mao's era and did not have any enthusiasm for "that thing." They use "that thing" this way to call the ladies underwear produced in their area. However, today, many people's lives rely on "that thing." In this area, the monthly wages of most workers in the better factories are about 1,700-1800 yuan (about 270-285 U.S. dollars) and six days a week. "If we have a lot of work and we need to work overtime, we can earn 2,000 yuan," said Li Yarong, a 35-year-old Hunan native who wanted to work overtime. "The more you work, the more you earn," she said.

In the South China Sea Kang Yi factory, the air is fresh, the floor is spotless, so the workers seem very satisfied with the environment. Chen Wei-Qiang operates his own factory and production line mainly for three markets: the EU countries - his biggest clients are France and Italy - Russia and Eastern Europe, and the mainland of China.

He pointed out that his factory also sells to the United States and Canada, but in recent years much less than in previous years. Chen Weiqiang said he felt for the first time the market's vibration was about this time last year. "The orders in the United States started to decrease then and we felt the precursor to the financial crisis." But orders from EU countries remained stable until the end of last year, he said. However, the Eastern European market also started to decline at the same time. With the decline in demand, these customers have asked for a 15% price reduction. Chen Weiqiang said that the drop in oil prices helped a lot for his company. He said: "As the decline in oil prices can offset 6% -7% of the product price cuts, but the other we need to take."

Now, his strategy is to absorb short-term losses in order to maintain the potential for long-term profitability. Chen Weiqiang said: "We must protect the EU market, I am confident I can do it, even if it means temporarily for profit, but we will certainly be able to weather the storm."