Humen Relies On The Garment Industry To Become An International Shopping Mall.

If Shanghai is regarded as the central coordinates of the galaxy around the Yangtze Delta town area, it is undoubtedly Guangzhou that plays the role in Southern China. Standing in the "banana leaf" shaped Guangzhou South Railway Station, Lecong and Humen, these two seemingly strong towns in Guangdong are actually close to each other.

This unprecedented physical distance has been achieved for two years, but in the past twenty years, the history and development of the two places have been quite common: one is rising from furniture and steel trade, the other is known as the clothing industry cluster. It also started early and has influence in the whole country.

On the other hand, it seems to be the common fate of the early towns in the Pearl River Delta region: two areas that have long been dominant in different fields have faced severe challenges in recent years.

In the face of the world market, industrial clusters and resources are confined to the "town". How long can the professional towns such as Lecong and Humen be able to lead?

　　 Amazing synchronization of the golden age

In 1996, Humen boldly held the first fashion fair, shocked the domestic industry. This year's Lecong furniture industry also announced that the furniture professional market area reached one million square meters.

It's hard to guess the real value of the land at the top of the 231 meter high the Yellow River center building in Humen.

Foshan people are likely to be familiar with the atmosphere in front of them. The low-level self built house buildings are surrounded by slightly lonely high-rise buildings. The two kinds of buildings are like the different traces left by the torrent of the two age.

Driven by the economic model of the typical Pearl River Delta professional town, Humen took the lead in the development more than 30 years ago, and the subsequent rise of the architectural community left behind a series of time stamped layers of time, which also dominated the subsequent urban space. At the same time, amazing wealth is gathered here. There are 5 five star hotels in a town level, and many luxurious exterior high-rise buildings are more eye-catching.

One kilometer away from the central building of the Yellow River and the town near the town of Humen, it is a small residential building with many years of history. Sitting in the office of Pan Jijun, a member of the Town Committee of Humen Town, the reporters can scrutinize the houses carefully. But Humen's reputation is not the level of urban development, but the advanced clothing industry. Pan Jijun grew up locally and witnessed the vicissitudes of the main urban area. In his view, the history of Humen is "first there is a market, there is a city", clothing trade development before the city.

Pan Jijun said that in the late 70s of last century and early 80s of last century, Humen began to sell clothes from stalls to clothing manufacturing industry. In the 90s of last century, Humen's clothing trade continued to escalate. In 1993, under the leadership of the town government, the "Fumin commercial building" was built and became the first large-scale professional clothing market in Humen. Since then, the garment trade and manufacturing industry have formed a virtuous circle, which has created many business owners and GDP for the city, and become the financial source of development and the guide of urban structure.

Amazing historical coincidence is enough to prove the fate of Lecong and Humen. The early 90s of last century was also a critical stage for the furniture business in Lecong, and in 1993, Lecong's first professional furniture market was founded, and the ten year long furniture promenade began to take shape.

From this perspective, Lecong and Humen have almost the same period of "golden age". In 1996, Humen boldly held the first fashion fair, shocked the domestic industry. And this year's furniture industry in Lecong also announced that the furniture professional market area reached one million square meters.

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Entering this century, Humen is still developing at a high speed. Every year, countless garments are shipped out from this busy town, moving through cars, trains and steamships. If the clothes worn on everyone can be regarded as an influence, the influence of Humen has already spread all over the world.

This brilliance has reached a new peak in 2005. In September this year, the first "thousand strong town" was first evaluated in the whole country, and Humen ranked first in the thousand strong towns. And this year's vibrant Lecong ranks thirty-second in the thousand strong towns. In the year before the selection, the China Light Industry Federation and the China Furniture Association have just given Lecong the title of "China furniture business capital".

Urbanization is still a fresh concept in that year. During the first thousand strong town activities, representatives of some thousand strong town governments and experts from around the country also visited Humen to explore the direction and mode of future development of small towns in China. There is no doubt that Humen was a model for the development of the whole country.

However, a subtle turning signal followed. In the second thousand strong town selection, which was held in 2006, Humen's top position was taken away by another opponent - Yushan Town, Kunshan, Jiangsu. And Lecong's ranking dropped to 38. Not only between the two towns, but also in the next few years, the competition between the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta has become increasingly fierce.

　　 "Production and town interaction" is in danger.

As the industry goes to the top of maturity, the problem that the two places need to face is the development of Commerce and circulation, product design and development.

Another obvious synchronization between Humen and Lecong is 2008. This year, the domestic apparel industry was in full swing, and Humen's clothing was also cast a shadow. In Lecong, which relied on overseas markets, furniture sales also encountered a cold wind.

At the end of 2009, when the financial crisis subsided slightly, the opening ceremony of the fourteenth China Humen International Fashion Fair opened the media. A reporter asked officials: Humen produces 200 million pieces of clothing annually, with a total sales volume of 15 billion yuan, with an average of 75 yuan per set. The added value is so low. What is the advantage of the industry?

In response, relevant officials of Humen town responded that the local garment industry has strong manufacturing links, but the R & D link is weak, and R & D capability and design level have a certain gap with the advanced level at home and abroad, and rely more on external innovation power.

Coincidentally, in the same year, Lecong announced for the first time the furniture industry optimization and upgrading plan, and positively acknowledged that "there are many development problems in the industry".

Combing the problems of Humen and Lecong has great bearing on the carrier environment. Although the total economic volume of the two cities is far more than that of many county-level cities, the streets and alleys are once full of "town" flavor. As the industry matures, the two places need to face up to the fact that how far can we go in the development of business circulation and product design and development in the context of towns?

In fact, Lecong furniture "technology level and spatial layout can not adapt to the inherent requirements of modern cities" problem, also exists in Humen. The garment factories and markets that occupy a lot of space will undoubtedly slow down the pace of Humen's urban development if we can not further enhance our efficiency.

Wang Ming, an advertising sales manager who often travels between Humen and Guangfo, remembers that before and after 2007, Humen was still short of modern office buildings, and many businesses had long been rented in hotels, and the monthly rent was expensive.

For a long period of time, the eye-catching economic data and the newly built new buildings still fail to conceal Humen's lack of development planning. By the year 2010, there were only more than 1000 temporary parking spaces in Humen Central District, with 120 thousand vehicles. The government even added more parking lots to the government's work report.

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Lecong's urban development is also not optimistic. In some Foshan locals, Lecong has a ten year difference in urban construction compared with Guicheng Town, ten kilometers away. The rolling traffic of the furniture promenade has not directly brought about a good living environment. Although it is close to the central area of Foshan, the increase of Lecong housing prices in the past few years has made many owners frown.

Between towns and cities, the image of Humen and Lecong is blurred. Last year, Guangdong professional town transformation and upgrading Summit Forum held in Lecong, the provincial government counselor Chen Hongyu summarized the past development of Lecong as "production town interaction".

Because of this, to some extent, Humen and Lecong are still in the stage of transition from "production town interaction" to "real production city interaction".

　 The market is going up to the mall.

The positioning of "International Mall" depends largely on the garment industry. One side detail is that the official micro-blog of Humen economic and Trade Office, which currently has about two million fans, has adopted the net name of "Humen clothing" directly.

Entering Humen's Fumin fashion city, the buyers and sellers are like the traffic flow on the Lecong furniture corridor, revealing the shade of Southern China's clothing market. The old Humen clothing trade circle, which is made up of Fu Min fashion city and other carriers, is located in the central area of Humen. There are more than 20 wholesale clothing markets in the 1 square kilometers, and the flow of people is highly concentrated, but the property has already approached the aging.

In the combination of industry and city, the carrier of commerce is undoubtedly the front line. Humen clothing is on the whole industrial chain, but its rise is from commerce, commerce and trade, and even one of the four major industries in Humen. After 2008, Humen, which witnessed the industry crisis, began planning new clothing business circles, trying to increase the strength of the garment industry by cutting the market.

Just about 3 kilometers away from the "old business circle", the 23 level high civilian clothing business center is regarded as the beginning of the rise of Humen's new clothing business circle. The center is no longer a purely professional market. There are one thousand commercial shops and 100 thousand square metres of commercial office.

Since then, the high level comprehensive market carriers such as the rich people's clothing and twin cities have risen in the new business circle. Despite the fact that popularity has once been questioned, new clothing business circles are still growing. And the idea of "mercantilism" from Clothing business circle It continued throughout Humen. Also in 2009, the town proposed to build "Binhai International Mall".

This idea has gradually matured and been extended since then. At that time, Humen was the first area in the Pearl River Delta to set up a "mall". Wang Xianqing, a professor at Guangdong University of Finance and economics, has said yes. He believes that compared with the transformation and upgrading of other towns in Dongguan, Humen still has a focus on the service industry.

It is easy to see that the "International Mall" depends largely on the clothing industry. One side detail is that the official micro-blog of Humen economic and Trade Office, which currently has about two million fans, has adopted the net name of "Humen clothing" directly.

The location of the International Mall undoubtedly raises higher requirements for the city. In 2011, tens of billions of dollars were invested, and ten key projects in Humen, including urban framework, headquarters economy and exhibition, were announced. Behind the massive reshaping of the city, Humen's mentality and vision have changed significantly. In a speech the following year, the relevant person in charge of Humen town proposed that Humen should plan Humen development according to the pattern of modern medium sized cities.

　　 Front-end war, 100 billion ambition

The GDP of Yushan Town, which was robbed of the thousand strong town champion, and now the Kunshan high tech Zone, has reached 59 billion. Although there is no real competition, the signals from the Yangtze River Delta are still hinting at Lecong and Humen.

Shenzhen's near terror rival is both a threat and an inspiration. In the free market choice, popular resources, fashion design, innovative technology and other industrial resources tend to be concentrated in urban rather than professional towns. This means that the difference between town street and city is likely to continue to expand behind the development of industries in both places.

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The market competition is brutal and swift. Before growing into a "modern medium city", Humen must give a solution directly from the industrial resources. Compared to the downstream business of the industrial chain, the design and manufacture at the front end will be more difficult to upgrade.

In Humen, the construction of "international Binhai mall" in the same period of Lecong is also seeking for the gathering of front-end resources, and the establishment of Guangdong Southern China furniture design and Research Institute and home international creative alliance and other institutions. Then in early 2012, the town explicitly proposed the development of furniture creative design industry, grabbing high-end value chain and transforming to furniture design capital.

And Humen's action is even more urgent. At the same time, a series of measures were put forward at the same time, including the six major centers of clothing industry, such as creative, brand, fashion information, e-commerce and so on. At the same time, we plan to invest 120 million yuan to set up a national garment innovation service center.

Quite a few clothing For enterprises, some of the resources behind these words have been out of reach. It is worth mentioning that in the first few months before the publication of the document, a news of the "Humen headquarters of many enterprises left" has also aroused concern. The news said that some enterprises "took away the highest value-added companies, such as R & D, design and marketing departments, and only left behind the production links."

This confirms the enormous pressure of Humen from the side. Scattered small and low technology enterprises are unable to shoulder the burden of transformation, while large and medium-sized enterprises are eager for new environment.

This is the largest garment industry support program in history. Humen hopes to strive to achieve annual sales of clothing and apparel industrial clusters over 50 billion yuan within two years, and drive the annual sales volume of clothing and apparel industry cluster in Dongguan to exceed 100 billion yuan.

However, Humen The overall strength is still "fierce". At the end of last year, in the Research Report on the comprehensive development of Guangdong town economy in 2012, Humen won the championship while Lecong ranked the sixth.

However, compared with Humen's 34 billion 800 million yuan GDP in 2012, the GDP of Yushan Town, which was robbed of the thousand strong town champion, and now the Kunshan high tech Zone, has reached 59 billion yuan. Although there is no real competition, signals from the Yangtze River Delta are still hinting at Lecong and Humen. There is still room for huge growth in the sustained growth of the town economy.