Crisis Reappearance Of Humen'S Clothing Industry: Labor Intensive Massive Economic Model Is Hard To Change

After the first quarter economic data was released in 2012, it was found that the economic downturn in Dongguan was faster than expected.

In the first quarter, GDP grew by only 1.3%, which was the lowest in 21 cities in Guangdong. The added value of industrial added value above scale dropped by 1.6%, the only negative growth city in Guangdong.

This labor-intensive industry is also concentrating on efforts to build high-tech industries such as Songshan Lake. However, the outside world is more concerned about the pformation and upgrading of the labor-intensive industries in the city.

It is said that the headquarters and R & D of labor-intensive industries can be left locally. However, in early May, "

The news of "headquarters running away" touched the sensitive nerves of all walks of life in Humen.

As a famous "famous Chinese clothing city" at home and abroad, Humen town is a typical representative of Dongguan's town economy. In 2011, it achieved 34 billion 738 million yuan in GDP and replaces Guangdong's comprehensive economic development.

The news is that Humen is born and bred.

"Wen Chun" moved its headquarters from Humen to Shenzhen in April, and took away the company's highest value-added R & D, marketing and other departments.

In addition, there are other brands such as Taji and Yi Yun. Some headquarters functions are also pferred to two major cities in Guangzhou or Shenzhen.

What is not known to the outside world is that Humen is listed as the "demonstration zone for upgrading Guangdong industrial clusters".

This representative enterprise has caused greater concern. The production enterprises moved to North Guangdong, West Guangdong, R & D and moved to Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Clothing practitioners in Humen may not have much thought about pformation. They are talking about how to "live first". They admits that they are experiencing a test of severe winter: factors such as declining orders, rising raw materials and increasing labor costs are squeezing the survival space of enterprises.

They expect a metamorphosis to get rid of the already overburdened development model.

Where is the next stop in Dongguan?

After 8 years in Humen, the taxi driver found that his business was not very good this year.

Every morning, he drives his car to the the Yellow River garment city near the center of Humen town.

This is the second largest clothing trading market in Guangdong Province, which has become the largest volume of traffic in Humen town.

But since the beginning of this year, Ding has discovered that the volume of traffic in the commercial city has decreased significantly.

"At this time in the past, I could pull three times a day, and now I might be able to pull it in two or three days."

This made him realize that this year's "economic situation is not good."

Master Ding's experience is not a special case.

Humen's more than 2000 large and small garment enterprises are bearing the pressure of survival with him.

Luo Jingsheng, sales manager of Ben Ting Clothing Co., Ltd. told this reporter that "this year, orders received by the company are 30% to 40% less than in previous years, and they are trying to find a way out."

This is a microcosm of Humen's clothing industry.

A head of the Humen town government told reporters that "the total export orders this year will drop by about 30%".

The responsible person also said that the predicament faced by Humen's clothing industry is not limited to this. The pace of development of Humen's clothing industry has dropped from the annual average growth rate of 20% to 2005, to the current growth rate of 5%~8%, which is basically flat with the growth rate of GDP.

In addition, labor, raw materials, factory rent and production monitoring and other costs of further rise, but also squeezed the profit margins of garment enterprises.

Taking labor costs as an example, the average wage of Humen garment enterprises has risen from 1200 yuan / month in 2010 to 2000 yuan / month now.

"At a good time, the gross profit margin of the garment industry is around 20%~30%, and now it is only about 5%~8%."

The person in charge said.

In the gross profit of 5%~8%, exporters also have to bear the profits and losses brought about by the fluctuation of the RMB exchange rate, which has led some enterprises to dare to take foreign orders.

It is precisely under such a severe economic crisis that Humen has "1 large and more than 20 small and medium-sized garment enterprises closed down", the official said.

The predicament faced by Humen's clothing industry is the epitome of the "Dongguan mode" development to the present bottleneck. The rise of the "Dongguan model" has long been doomed to the structure of its export-oriented economy. Whenever the international economic crisis hits, Dongguan always gets the most serious injury.

On the other hand, while Hong Kong and Taiwan capital brought manufacturing to Dongguan, Dongguan people did not compete with them, instead, they turned their development to the traditional service industry.

They built a large number of factories, hotels and restaurants, relying on the large number of people's consumption needs brought by traditional manufacturing industries, and developed the local consumer service industry in Dongguan.

The problem is that although Dongguan is "rich in people", private capital has not been extensively involved in manufacturing and even high-end manufacturing and high-end service industries. It can only survive in traditional manufacturing industries controlled by foreign capital.

Jiang Lin, director of the Department of Finance and taxation of South of the Five Ridges College of Zhongshan University, believes that under this economic growth mode, the development of traditional manufacturing industry has become the cornerstone of Dongguan's economic development.

Once the manufacturing industry is affected by export crisis, it will gradually evolve into a "Dongguan mode" crisis.

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The strategy of introducing high-end manufacturing industry is serious shortage of land resources.

The local garment industry is also undergoing pformation and upgrading for the current situation of the garment industry in Humen.

Tan Zhiqiang, director of the Humen municipal government's economic and Trade Office, believes that the complete industrial chain owned by Humen's clothing industry is the endogenous force to ensure the pformation and upgrading of Humen's garment industry.

Tan Zhiqiang told reporters that in addition to having 2000 garment production enterprises and 18 large-scale professional clothing trading markets, Humen also owns supporting enterprises such as Garment Machinery City, raw materials processing and consulting training, and has formed an industrial structure network from talent, equipment, design, production, sale, matching and integration services.

But even with the advantages of industrial clusters, the impression of Humen clothing to the outside world is still dominated by the "low and medium end" garments manufactured by OEM, instead of turning the advantage of cluster into a brand advantage that is more advanced.

The reporter understands that at present, Humen clothing industry has 1 famous international brands and 20 famous brands in Guangdong Province, and the more than 2000 clothing enterprises in Humen have registered more than 5000 brands in the industrial and commercial sector.

Tan Zhiqiang acknowledged that compared with the rising stars in Fujian, Jiangsu and other places, Humen still has not many brands of first-line clothing.

"The cost of building a brand is huge and takes time. It is difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises to build their own brand."

Chen Hongyu, a professor at the Guangdong provincial Party school, pointed out that Humen's clothing industry has been caught in a cycle: when the economic situation is in good condition, there is no pressure for survival and pformation and upgrading. When the economic situation is bad, the market prospect is uncertain, and it is more difficult to upgrade.

Yin Jinghui, Secretary of the Humen Municipal Committee of the Town Committee, recently proposed that we should strive to build up a nationwide key industrial cluster of over 50 billion yuan in Humen clothing and apparel industry, and we will establish and improve the six major public service platforms, such as R & D design, quality inspection, personnel training, information consultation, exhibition logistics and financing services.

At that time, Humen's native clothing brand "Wen Chun" came out, and its headquarters moved from Humen to Shenzhen in April, and the company with the highest added value of R & D, marketing and other departments was taken away.

In addition, there are other brands such as Taji and Yi Yun. Some headquarters functions are also pferred to two major cities in Guangzhou or Shenzhen.

Obviously, for Humen, for Dongguan, the industry they want to develop is also what Shenzhen and Guangzhou are looking for, and the latter may be more competitive.

Tan Zhiqiang, who is familiar with the development path of Humen's garment industry, believes that the development of Dongguan's existing characteristic manufacturing industry to high-end development and the construction of a pyramidal industrial structure is a way to solve the current "Dongguan mode" dilemma.

"Based on numerous factories and complete industrial chains, we hatch more high-end brands recognized by the market."

In Tan Zhiqiang's view, the clothing industry in Humen is going on this road, but this requires the courage of the enterprise to decide itself and the government's guidance in industrial policy.

In addition, Dongguan has again focused on investment promotion, trying to promote faster pformation and upgrading in this way. The prescription of pformation and upgrading of Dongguan city party secretary Xu Jianhua to Dongguan is to promote the pformation and upgrading of Dongguan and the pformation of economic development mode with the construction of the "three heavy" construction of major industrial agglomeration areas, major projects and major science and technology projects.

To this end, the Dongguan government has formulated the "1+5" investment policy, which is launched around the introduction of major projects.

Dongguan plans to introduce 200 billion yuan of domestic capital in the next five years, and will strive to introduce and cultivate a number of projects of 10 billion yuan to 100 billion yuan.

Dongguan hopes to take action to change the status quo of "starry starry sky and lack of bright moon".

But combing the current situation of Dongguan, a prominent problem lies before Xu Jianhua: the intensity of land development in Dongguan has approached 45% of the warning line, and the available land resources are scarce.

This makes Dongguan tend to be at a disadvantage when competing with other cities.

A typical example is that in 2010, Dongguan had the chance to win the FAW Volkswagen project, but eventually it lost to the brotherhood city Foshan because of the lack of land for the project.

Jiang Lin believes that apart from the disadvantages of land, the lack of high-end talent, technology and efficient modern service industry is the reason why big projects are hard to land in Dongguan.

Obviously, the road of pformation and upgrading in Dongguan is endless.