The Footwear Industry In Dongguan Continues To Move Forward Amid Difficulties And Hardships.

December 7th dispatch 1992

The way of Industrial Development

Dongguan

Since 1978, the Hongkong people in Houjie have taken the lead in the rental site of Shanxi Mei Village, Houjie Town, Dongguan, to start the first "three to one" shoe factory, "the shoe factory", the main product is the leather processing men's shoes.

Later, such as Shan Mei Ai Mei leather factory, laoxia Jinding plastic skin products factory and so on, such as rain poured in like bamboo shoots.

In 80s, driven by the Hong Kong shoe factory, the shoemaking technology of the footwear industry and workers in Dongguan has been developing rapidly.

At the beginning of the project, the factory started to raise funds and build factories and introduce shoe factories.

In the late 80s and early 90s, the world footwear industry center moved from Japan and Taiwan to China.

The opportunity of international industrial pfer and Dongguan's primitive accumulation of shoe industry makes Dongguan's foreign shoe factories develop rapidly, forming a huge shoe production industry belt.

In 1992, Houjie town built its first shoe related professional market, "Houjie leather market", which specializes in finished shoes, shoes accessories and so on.

Houjie Town has formed nearly 10 professional market for shoe material and shoe material, with an area of about 450000 square meters, providing a complete set of supporting products for the development of footwear industry.

By the end of the 90s of the last century and the beginning of this century, the interior division of the shoe industry in Dongguan was becoming more and more perfect, driven by the shoe industry and processing enterprises.

The whole industry has basically realized industrialization and specialization from production links to raw material procurement, machinery and equipment, spare parts processing and supply, to product marketing, distribution, information, design and exhibition.

In recent years, under the influence of the global financial crisis, recruitment difficulties, rising prices of raw materials, rising electricity prices and declining export profits brought by the appreciation of the renminbi, footwear enterprises have ushered in the era of "big shuffle".

The adoption of strong technology and brand building has become a common trend and inevitable choice for the development of leather enterprises in Dongguan. It is also the direction for many shoe enterprises in Dongguan to strive for pformation.

At the end of 2006, Dongguan actively explored the headquarters economy and guided the pformation and upgrading of enterprises to take root in development.

At the "Sixth China Dongguan international shoe exhibition shoe machine exhibition" (November 2007 28~30), a "world footwear development forum" was officially held to build "world shoe industry (Asia) headquarters base", and promoted the pformation and upgrading of footwear industry in Dongguan and even the whole city, the whole province and the whole country through the leading role of headquarters and base radiation.

By 2010, 1600 of Dongguan's leather enterprises had been pformed and upgraded locally.

At present, Dongguan famous shoemaking enterprises, represented by Xing ang and Huajian, have begun to create their own brands and embarked on a pformation road combining brand research with processing and manufacturing.

Dilemma

The shoe industry in Dongguan is in a very awkward period.

The influence of various factors will drive shoemaking enterprises back to the crossroads: one is to succumb to the pressure of survival, continue to find ways to lower costs, and the other way is pformation, which is no easier road than the former.

Dongguan has 15000 processing trade enterprises, known as the "world factory", but how many enterprises managers do not know how to upgrade the industry. From the overall perspective of Dongguan, the processing trade still accounts for most of the economic share after 10 years of upgrading.

There are only a small number of enterprises who are accustomed to processing trade type to upgrade, and few of them succeed in upgrading.

Dongguan's pformation of domestic sales is also hard to go. The shoes exported by Dongguan are very smooth. The shoes occupy 70% of the world's market share, but there is a lot of confusion in the domestic market.

Dongguan's shoe enterprises have opened up the domestic market, more from the professional point of view, ignoring the market positioning and shopping malls docking.

Most of the competitors entering the department store are world-class brands, which are "very difficult" when they first enter.

There is a lack of access to Dongguan goods and chain stores. As for the expansion of the market, some Dongguan shoe enterprises have indicated that they can sell more through professional exhibitions. Usually, international exhibitions in foreign countries do well in export sales, while domestic professional exhibitions are mostly regional, and the stimulating effect on domestic sales is not too large.

Especially in connection with chain stores, "lack of proper channels".

At present, when chain stores introduce imported goods, they value the "buying phase" of goods and have great love for brands with market consumption power, which makes some brands of the stores look a bit similar. For the lack of brand shoes in Dongguan, their foothold and development space is relatively small.

Interpretation and inspiration

As we all know, shoemaking industry is a typical labor-intensive industry. From the perspective of global development, this industry is always shifting to low cost countries and regions. Since the reform and opening up, Dongguan and Houjie have seized the opportunity to pfer the world footwear industry. With the establishment of Sino foreign joint ventures as a breakthrough, the shoemaking industry has been developing rapidly through the introduction of capital, equipment, technology and materials. With the development of industry, Dongguan and Houjie shoes industry is also facing the problem of pformation and upgrading.

The question before the industry is whether the pition from single processing to R & D is feasible.

Wang Zhuoliang, Executive Deputy Secretary General of Dongguan Leather Footwear Association, believes that Dongguan, especially Houjie, is still one of the best shoe industry centers in China. This can be seen from the development of local shoe material market.

Take Houjie as an example, the local industry chain is very perfect. No matter what kind of shoes you are engaged in, you can find all kinds of raw materials at different prices. The formation of this industry pattern is not overnight. Therefore, Dongguan's position as a shoe manufacturing base will not be easily replaced.

The Dongguan municipal government also provides platform for financing and loans for shoe enterprises, providing policy support for those who are based on Dongguan's "self rescue" and development.

In recent years, the professional market is more frequent. The professional market of Houjie has achieved complementary advantages through dislocation operation, forming a benign cycle and competition.

From the production of raw materials to the circulation of final footwear products, the links between Dongguan and Dongguan are quite in place. Experts believe that the basic conditions for developing footwear industry are the advantages of footwear industry. The pformation of shoe industry is a historical trend inevitably experienced by shoe enterprises, and is the result of the joint effect of the footwear industry's own industrial attributes and the current footwear industry situation.

The footwear industry in Dongguan should rely on its strong resources superiority and take a solid foothold in the face of this hard battle. We should take the road of technology and brand, and make a pragmatic research and development center and production base, further develop the headquarters economy, vigorously promote the development of industrial clusters, and continue to maintain the advantages of the footwear industry in Dongguan.

And constantly overturn the traditional immaturity of development, and successfully pform the world footwear industry.

How did Dongguan realize the pformation and upgrading in the post crisis pressure? What experience and inspiration did it have? In order to solve the current severe pformation crisis and take Dongguan as the main processing trade enterprise, the so-called "cage changing bird changing" development mode was put forward, that is, pforming the development mode, adjusting and optimizing the industrial structure, upgrading the industrial level, pferring the labor-intensive and low-end industries, making room for development, attracting and undertaking high-end industries and talents.

For a long time, Dongguan shoe enterprises are mainly OEM OEM models, which rely on processing exports to maintain development. This disadvantage restricts the development and improvement of technology, as well as brand building and marketing.

"Changing cage and changing birds" is to change this situation, automatically introduce high-end industrial chain, and create brand and technology authority.

The experience and Inspiration of Dongguan in the post crisis era Dongguan is committed to the pformation and upgrading of processing trade enterprises jointly written by the Political Research Office of the municipal Party committee and the Municipal Bureau of foreign trade and economic cooperation. In this article, the experience of pformation is summed up in six aspects: that is to rely on advanced concepts to activate potential; to rely on advanced technology to grasp the initiative; to rely on strong research and development to seize the high point; to rely on creative products to pry the market; to rely on people based management to consolidate morale; to expand the space by expanding the chain.

After the pformation of pformation pains, the road of development will also be broader.

According to the above article, there are four aspects of the Enlightenment from Dongguan's practice over the past two years, that is, the government should stand taller than the enterprise, stick closer to the enterprise, help the enterprises to become more stable and do more for the enterprises.

Achievement development

Just over two years, Dongguan has handed out an impressive report card.

Since 2008, more than 1600 enterprises which have no legal person qualifications have been pformed into legal person enterprises in Dongguan. They have successfully achieved pformation and upgrading on the spot, accounting for about 30% of the total number.

Some enterprises in Dongguan have set up R & D centers for shoe-making projects, and various technical alliances between enterprises have begun to develop.

In addition, the footwear industry in Dongguan has started technology standardization in the fields of finished shoes, materials and parts, shoe making equipment, etc. the rapid development of the local shoe material specialized market indicates that the pace of pformation and upgrading of Dongguan shoe industry to the direction of R & D is accelerating, and the industrial cluster characterized by specialized production has gradually formed, and has begun to pform from the previous single manufacturing to R & D, brand operation, logistics distribution and other centers.

The Dongguan government plans to take the world shoe industry headquarters base as the center, establish the Dongguan shoe industry creative park in Dongguan Houjie ecological science and Technology Park, plan and reserve 1000 mu of land in the park, provide preferential land resources for the park shoe enterprises to establish R & D centers, trade centers, high-end production lines and public R & D trading platforms.

Next, Houjie will also select large foreign trade enterprises to actively integrate foreign trade SMEs.

We will intensify efforts to introduce large and large footwear enterprises at home and abroad, focusing on the introduction of domestic and foreign high-end footwear brand enterprises and large and medium trade buyers, and strive to introduce 25 new world brands, 30 domestic brand enterprises, 20 shoe enterprises headquarters, 50 domestic and foreign associations or chambers of Commerce to set up brand exhibition centers and promotional centers.

In order to promote the development of shoemaking industry, in November 3, 2010, the government of Houjie town took the lead in formulating the policy support plan for pformation and upgrading of Dongguan footwear industry and cluster development, striving to reach 1 billion 910 million pairs of shoes in Dongguan by 2015, and the total output value and sales revenue reached 80 billion 500 million yuan; and strive to build Dongguan into the world footwear industry with shoe industry R & D design center, shoe trade center, shoe brand distribution center and shoe production base in 2015.