Returning Home And Starting A Business To Create A "Textile Town"

As entrepreneurs returning home are engaged in textile processing, a "textile town" has emerged in Shilipu Town, Xiangcheng County. Nearly 50 textile enterprises have gathered here, allowing more than 2000 left behind women to earn money at home.

"Work hard to get off to a good start." Wei Qiumin, the 54 year old general manager of Alice Sweater Processing Factory, said with a smile while checking the products just after the cold season, that she was a "female entrepreneur" just recognized by the town.

When talking about returning home to start a business, Wei Qiumin sighed deeply. In the winter of 1986, at the age of 16, she refused to be poor and went to work in Dongguan Sweater Processing Factory in Guangdong Province. As she asked for advice modestly, she soon learned the production technology. Her salary was 180 yuan in the first month and 300 yuan in the second month, which was a huge income at that time.

In the Spring Festival of 2010, Wei Qiumin returned to her hometown to visit her relatives. Facing the elderly couple, she decided to return to her hometown to start her own business after thinking about it. That year, she bought a loom and worked in her hometown. In 2016, the fight against poverty started. Wei Qiumin actively joined the poverty alleviation team, invested more than 3 million yuan to establish Alice Sweater Processing Factory with the support of the town and village, recruited more than 30 left behind women in the village, and invited Wang Xiaoya, who worked in Dongguan Textile Factory, to work together. Wang Xiaoya was responsible for the training and soon trained more than 50 skilled technicians.

Wei Yaqin, 42 years old in Luwai Village, has a 70 year old mother-in-law and a 10 year old child. In 2016, her family was identified as a poor household. In order to help Wei Yaqin get rid of poverty as soon as possible, the village cadres introduced her to Alice Sweater Processing Factory. Wei Yaqin soon got started, earning more than 5000 yuan a month, and soon he was out of poverty.

In the rise of the "textile town", Wang Xiaojun, the 51 year old chairman of the town textile association and secretary of the Houcun East Village Party branch, played an exemplary role. In 1993, Wang Xiaojun went to Dongguan Textile Factory in Guangdong to work. In the spring of 1998, he returned to his village and built two textile factories, Xiangyu and Langsheng, using the funds and contacts accumulated from working as a part-time worker. He successively arranged more than 80 left behind women in his village and neighboring villages to work in enterprises, so that they could earn an average monthly income of 4000 yuan. In 2023, the textile association was established in the town, and he was elected president.

Like Wang Xiaojun and Wei Qiumin, many people have returned to their hometown to do textile processing in recent years. Pan Yonggang, 48, left his job of Hubei Xiaogan Textile Factory with a monthly income of 8000 yuan last February, and invested more than 1 million yuan with his friend Wei Lixiao to build a textile factory in Houxi Village. Liu Xiaozhen, a young woman from Dongyao Village, returned home from Zhejiang Wenzhou Textile Factory last May, and invested more than 500000 yuan to purchase 15 full-automatic computer looms and set up a textile factory at home.

Lang Xiaohao, the mayor of Shilipu Town, introduced that last year, the textile enterprises in the town processed more than 10 million sweaters and garments, with an output value of nearly 100 million yuan. In order to support entrepreneurs returning home to show their skills in their hometown and promote the employment of villagers, especially left behind women, the town is currently using foreign capital to prepare for the construction of a textile industrial park, which has begun to take shape.