Behind The "Half The Sky" Of Chinese Shoe Factories

< p > China's largest female a target= "_blank" href= "//www.sjfzxm.com/" > shoes < /a > production base Huajian group (hereinafter referred to as Huajian) is making a part of "made in China" into "made in Africa".

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< p > Dongguan started business in 1996, Ganzhou built factories in 2002, and invested in Ethiopia in 2011 (hereinafter called "Ethiopia") in 1996.

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< p > Huajian became the first Chinese footwear enterprise to enter Africa.

Just as ancient people lived by water, China's manufacturing industry gradually moved to lower labor costs.

Huajian's development path may become the common trajectory of more and more Chinese manufacturing enterprises.

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Li Keqiang, premier of the State Council, is visiting Africa recently. P

While visiting a Chinese funded Industrial Park in Ethiopia, he said that China would like to give priority to the pfer of suitable and labor-intensive industries and advantageous capacity to Africa, enhance local self-development capacity, create more jobs, and make China Africa realize mutual benefit and win-win situation.

The director of investment in the Chinese Industrial Park believes that the visit by Premier Li Keqiang is significant for domestic industrial pfer.

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< p > this is a happy situation for both China and Africa: China's surplus capacity in infrastructure construction and the traditional manufacturing enterprises that have narrowed their living space due to rising labor costs are now welcomed by Africa.

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< p > < strong > a factory rises half the sky > /strong > /p >

< p > in Li Keqiang's Ethiopia itinerary, the Oriental Industrial Park is one of them.

This is the only national economic and trade cooperation zone of the Chinese government in Ethiopia.

The industrial park built by Chinese funded enterprises was listed as a priority item of industrial development in 2008 by the Ethiopian government. Now it has become the largest and most advanced investment platform with the most advanced facilities.

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< p > there are many manufacturing enterprises such as shoemaking, car assembly, cement production and so on. The total number of employees has reached over 3800, creating 3400 jobs for Ethiopia.

The enterprises that have been put into operation include the Oriental Steel Corp and Huajian international shoe city, which are also two enterprises visited by Li Keqiang.

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< p > China's ambassador to Ethiopia Jie Xiaoyan said that Huajian shoe city is the largest shoe making enterprise of Ethiopia. The women's shoes produced by this factory account for more than 50% of the export share of the Ethiopian footwear industry. It has led to the development of local a target= "_blank" href= "//www.sjfzxm.com/" > leather < /a > processing, pportation, logistics, farms and so on.

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< p > data in May last year, the Huajian Ethiopia factory can produce 5000 pairs of finished shoes every day, which has solved 2000 local employees' employment.

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< p > Huawei, the assistant president of the Huajian company, told the first Financial Daily reporter that the Huajian Ethiopia factory is a wholly Chinese owned enterprise. The product is manufactured by Ethiopia, which is mainly exported to the European and American markets and enjoys zero tariff.

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Under the background of the majority of shoe companies going to the mainland and Southeast Asia, P has taken bold steps to make further progress.

Why did Huajian choose Africa? Yifu Lin, an economist who plays an important role in the process of China's entry into Africa, answered: "Vietnam's relatively small number of employed labor force and pferred to Vietnam will soon increase the labor cost of Vietnam. The cost advantage will soon disappear and the development momentum will be insufficient.

Africa has a large population, the modern manufacturing industry is very backward, and it is still in the agricultural dominated society.

At the same time, Ethiopia's wage level is very low. Therefore, its competitiveness is very strong and its development conditions are very good.

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In P February 2008, Yifu Lin was appointed chief economist of the world bank and senior vice president of development economics.

Yifu Lin led the World Bank experts to study the cost and productivity of footwear industry in China, Ethiopia and Vietnam.

In March 2011, he analyzed the comparative advantages of his leather footwear industry to Meles, Essex Prime Minister: cattle and sheep were mainly pasture and leather.

He suggested that Meles go to China to invest in leather and footwear industry.

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In August 2011, P used the opportunity to attend the opening ceremony of the twenty-sixth World University Games, inviting a group of Chinese entrepreneurs to visit Ethiopia.

The head of Huajian, who was invited to go to China, went into the Dongfang Industrial Park three months later, and recruited dozens of local staff to train in China.

Soon, Huajian's leather shoes were loaded into containers destined for the United States.

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< p > Yifu Lin believes that building factories in Africa is very important for Huajian and China's footwear industry, because it provides a practice and an attempt for the development path of China's footwear industry.

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< p > strong > China, China, or China < /strong > /p >

< p > "among the Ethiopian global development partners, the first is China! Second is China! Third is China!" Dymek, Deputy Prime Minister of Ethiopia, once said so.

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< p > Li Keqiang's visit to Africa has an active symbolic significance.

On the afternoon of 5, he attended the unveiling ceremony of the first phase of the Addisababa Adama Expressway and the ribbon cutting ceremony for the two phase of the construction of the two phase project.

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< p > this highway connects Adama, the capital of the Ethiopia and the second largest city, with a total length of 78 kilometers. It is the first expressway in the country and even East Africa, and is fully constructed by Chinese enterprises and by Chinese technology and standards.

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< p > Jie Xiaoyan used a set of data to show the close cooperation between China and Ethiopia.

In the field of infrastructure construction, more than 90% of the highway, the national communication network, the first railway and the urban light rail, the first wind farm, and several important hydropower stations are all built or participated by Chinese enterprises.

In 2013, the market for contracts for the construction of the central Ethiopia project increased significantly. The new contract was about $6 billion a year, and the contract amount was nearly US $2 billion 300 million.

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In the manufacturing sector, China, as the largest trading partner of Ethiopia and the largest source of foreign investment in Ethiopia, has expanded its investment in Ethiopia in recent years. P

The above-mentioned Oriental Industrial Park is a typical representative.

The first financial daily inquires into the website of the industrial park. It is noted that besides the Dongfang iron and Huajian shoes city, there are also Dongfang cement Limited by Share Ltd, ERON science and Technology Building Materials Co., Ltd., LQY pipe manufacturing Co., Ltd., the Great Wall Packaging Manufacturing Co., Ltd., and wild horse automobile manufacturing Co., Ltd.

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"P", because of its thirst for industrialization, the Ethiopian government has introduced a series of preferential policies for foreign investment.

Take Dongfang Industrial Park as an example, Zhou Chunlong, Minister of investment promotion of the industrial park, said that the preferential policies currently enjoyed by the industrial park include: the enterprise income tax in the region enjoys a 4~7 year tax exemption period, and foreign exchange reserves are kept at 30%.

The industrial park is listed by the Ethiopian government as an important priority in the country's industrial development plan. The government has put the power supply line into the park.

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< p > official data show that since 2009, China has been Africa's largest trading partner for five consecutive years, and the trade volume between China and Africa has reached 210 billion 200 million yuan in 2013.

Africa has become China's important source of imports, the second largest overseas contract market and emerging investment destinations.

By the end of 2013, China's stock of non direct investment reached US $25 billion, and there were more than 2500 Chinese enterprises in non investment.

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< p > < strong > from "made in China" to "made in Africa" < /strong > /p >

< p > Africa is not only a vast prairie and leopard cheetah for China, but also a good choice for China to undertake industrial pfer and resolve excess capacity because of its industrial gaps.

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< p > resources are rich in raw materials and huge in population dividends. These are reasons why people are optimistic about Africa.

According to the Journal of Africa, the total number of labor force in Africa will reach 1 billion 100 million in 2040, and the labor force will be cheap, the proportion of urban population will reach 50%, and the market potential will be endless. In 2050, there will be 2 billion consumers in Africa, of whom the number of new middle class is over 60 million, becoming the largest market in the world.

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Compared with P, China's domestic demand is low and its overcapacity is serious.

In October last year, the State Council's Guiding Opinions on resolving the contradiction between excess capacity and excess capacity indicated that by the end of 2012, the utilization rate of steel, cement, electrolytic aluminum, flat glass and ship capacity was only 72%, 73.7%, 71.9%, 73.1% and 75%, significantly lower than the international standard.

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< p > an important way to resolve excess capacity is to pfer to the international market.

Tang Renwu, director of the school of government management at Beijing Normal University (micro-blog), pointed out that through the waterfall effect, the capacity of domestic surplus but not global surplus could be pferred to a slightly lower industrial chain than that of China, such as the discovery of new oil and gas mineral resources in sub Saharan Africa in recent years, but the industrial base and infrastructure of the region are relatively backward, thus forming a bottleneck for the growth of its energy exports. China should strengthen its economic and trade ties with these countries, strengthen investment in the areas of energy, pportation, electricity and other infrastructure construction, and digest China's excess capacity.

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P, deputy director of the overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, pointed out that excess capacity may be a burden to China, but for other developing countries, it is likely that they are in urgent need of technology and production capacity for economic development, and the potential market is very large.

In the past many developed countries in the process of economic development in response to the problem of excess capacity, this is the way to go.

In the early days of China's reform and opening up, a large number of processing enterprises in coastal areas appeared to be "batons" of surplus Industries in developed countries.

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Zhu Jianfang, chief economist of CITIC Securities, said that China's steel, cement, electrolytic aluminum, shipbuilding and other industries in the world have certain advantages in technology, equipment and scale, and can actively promote the overseas pfer of dominant enterprises in P.

From the experience of developed countries and the actual situation of China's industries, the < a target= "_blank" href= "//www.sjfzxm.com/ > > /a" target= "_blank" href= "//www.sjfzxm.com/", "shoes and hats", "automobile and machinery industries", and wind power equipment, polysilicon, photovoltaic solar cells and other emerging industries have strong overseas pfer possibilities.

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< p > however, although low cost is a great temptation, it is still necessary for us to find out the problems that will be faced by enterprises intending to go to Africa to dig gold: the quality of labor in Africa is obviously yet to be cultivated.

The average wage of Ethiopia workers is only 300 yuan to 400 yuan per month, but the quality of labor is much lower than that of Chinese workers.

According to the World Bank statistics, a Chinese worker can produce 4.5 chairs a day, a Vietnamese worker can reach 1.9, and an Ethiopian worker can only be 0.3.

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It is also a matter of time before the African P culture integrates with modern industrial civilization.

In the local area, most workers do not have the concept of saving. They often do not work after a few days' work.

Wei Yongquan, general manager of Huajian Ethiopia, said that Huajian chose 90 employees with a certain degree of education to send them to Dongguan's factories to learn production and management. After returning to Africa, the 90 employees were trained as workers at the grass-roots level.

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P, a scholar who has settled in Africa for a long time, thinks that the modern manufacturing industry must be built on the necessary infrastructure such as pportation, urban construction, hydropower, social services, mature supporting judicial system, good investment environment and stable political situation.

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< p > Tao said that although infrastructure in southern Africa has been developing in recent years, there are still many problems in pportation and energy.

Although labor costs are low in Africa, labor efficiency is low and technology content is low, and most African workers are illiterate and illiterate. Vocational training is often started from literacy.

Political instability, corruption, and low efficiency are also obstacles to investment.

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