Bra Town Faces Challenges Of Upgrading And Transforming To Service Industry.

Since the reform and opening up, industrial clusters in China's special coastal areas have been developing rapidly. About half of Zhejiang's current industrial output is made up of hundreds of specialized villages and specialized towns.

The economist, published in April 16th, has an industrial cluster: Bra The town's bleak article focuses on a small town specializing in bra production in Shantou. As the economy slows down and costs rise, these low skilled labor-intensive industries are faced with the challenge of upgrading and transforming to service industries.

In a certain town of Gu Rao Town, Shantou, Guangdong Province Underwear In the factory of Industrial Co., every worker has a hill built up by a bra. The workshop echoed. Sewing machine Crackling sounds, employees repeat simple mechanical tasks, and pass on clothes to the next person on the production line. The factory produces 22 thousand heavy pads per day, most of which are sold to domestic stores. The government of the town of Gu Rao likes to call itself the "town of underwear", where there are thousands of similar factories. Gu Rao produces 350 million bra and 430 million vests and panties every year, and sells them at home and abroad. Underwear accounts for 80% of its industrial output.

Gu Rao is full of billboards showing large breasts (usually foreigners) wearing underwear, which are the pillars of the town's prosperity. But now many of the people in Gu Rao are worried about the future, as well as people in several other underwear factory clusters around the coastal city of Shantou. A senior employee of another small underwear company who made underwear and swimwear said that the cost is rising, but customers are unwilling to spend more money. Last year, the boss of several factories in Gu Rao ran away, leaving behind debts and arrears of wages. Another lingerie town near Chen Rao, a nearby underwear shop, closed several underwear stores last year.

During the past 30 years of rapid economic growth, single industrial towns such as Gu Rao and Chen Dian town have springing up everywhere along the eastern coast of China, often in the area of paddy fields. Investments from Hongkong and Taiwan, and the influx of large numbers of laborers from inland China, have contributed to the export boom in China. There are now more than 500 such cities in China, that is, the "township" of a single product, such as buttons, neckties, plastic shoes, automobile tires, toys, Christmas ornaments and toilets.

Gu Rao is one of several centers that make China the largest underwear manufacturer in the world. According to statistics from Frost&Sullivan, a consultancy, China produced 2 billion 900 million bras in 2014, accounting for 60% of the world's total. In some industries, the aggregation of similar enterprises in the same place creates the critical quality of good suppliers and skilled workers. These well-defined towns in China (some township) produce 63% of the world's shoes, 70% of eyeglasses and 90% of energy-saving lamps.

All these growth have produced an environmental cost. In 2010, NGO Greenpeace released a report that the fabric dyeing plant in Gu Rao had seriously polluted the local water resources and made it unsuitable for drinking. But compared with foreign eco fighters, the manufacturers of Gu Rao bra are more worried about foreign competition.

Chinese consumer goods manufacturers occupy a huge share of the global market with their low price. But this advantage is disappearing: wages have risen by 12% every year since 2001. Now, Thailand and Vietnam, which have cheaper labor and lower taxes, are producing underwear for international underwear brands such as Vitoria's Victoria (sSecret) and Na Shengsha (LaSenza). Virgin China, the largest lingerie firm, will open two factories in Vietnam this year, the first time it has built factories outside China. Virgin is planning to build two more plants by 2018. Kampuchea and Burma joined the fighting. Japanese underwear manufacturer Wacoal (Wacoal) opened factories in two countries in 2013, and built another factory in Burma last year.

It also has its advantages, such as its excellent supply chain. There are several factories that produce underwear parts: dyed textiles, lace and hard foam used to fill the lifting bra. All kinds of elastic belts in shorts are made locally. Gu Rao also seems to enjoy loose trademark regulation. Some underpants are written with misleading name names, such as "CalvenKlain" and "OalvinKlein".

Gu Rao officials insist that the town can overcome difficulties by using technology instead of manual technology. But at the moment, it is even harder to attract funds and technology to transform grain and Rao than a local daring private entrepreneur who opened the first bra factory in 1982. At that time, private enterprises were still not recognized in China.

Even the biggest underwear manufacturer in China has been having difficulties in obtaining long-term commitment from buyers. This makes them reluctant to spend money on research or technology. Some factories in Gu Rao are upgrading, such as the production of seamless laser cutting underwear and the use of new and more comfortable materials for making bra rings. But most factories still belong to low tech labor-intensive factories.

Given that such a single consumer goods producing town such as Gu Rao is dominated by private enterprises, they may be more flexible to adapt to changing market conditions than those of China's steel and coal cities. Steel and coal cities plan to lay off 18 million people in the next few years. 2013 of the 161 thousand of the people in Valley Rao town were migrant workers. Many of them are low skilled workers who change from one job to another, regardless of which factory they are sewing the same part of the bra. Most people fail to complete high school and lack the ability to retrain and switch to service jobs. The Chinese government hopes that the service sector will replace manufacturing. But fortunately, if they lose the company, most of them will have houses and farms in the countryside, and they can go back.

Some towns that are produced by single products may gradually disappear, except for empty factories, concrete shells and contaminated soil. Towns like the valley have created huge wealth in the poorest areas of the country. But if they want to thrive in the future, their vision needs to go beyond the necessities of consumer goods.