Dongguan Relying on Clothing Industry to Become an International Shopping Mall

In the face of the world market, industrial clusters and resources are confined to the “town” and Leconghumen and other specialized towns can also lead for a long time, and when can they completely get rid of “town taste” and become “high-rich”?

The “Golden Age” was amazingly synchronized. In 1996, Humen darted to hold its first apparel trade fair and shocked the domestic industry. The Lecong furniture industry this year also announced that the professional furniture market area reached one million square meters.

Looking out on the top floor of the 231-meter-high Humen Yellow River Center Building, it is difficult to guess the real value of this land.

Foshan people are likely to be familiar with the atmosphere in front of them, and a series of low-rise self-built housing buildings are surrounded by slightly lonely high-rise buildings. The two types of buildings are like different traces left by the floods of the two eras.

Driven by the economic model of a typical Pearl River Delta professional town, Humen took the lead over 30 years ago. Afterwards, the rise of the building community left a time-stamped image of multiple epoch-levels, and also crowded the subsequent urban space. At the same time, amazing wealth is gathered here. There are five five-star hotels in a town-level area, and many luxurious high-rise buildings are attracting attention.

Located one kilometer away from the Yellow River Center Building and close to the Humen Town Government, it is a small residential building with a long history. Sitting in the office of Pan Jijun, a member of the township committee of Humen Town, reporters can carefully look at the houses. However, Humen is not known for its level of urban construction but is a well-developed clothing industry. Pan Jijun grew up in the local area and witnessed the coastal area of ​​the local city. In his view, Humen in history is "there is a market first, only a city," and clothing and commerce development before the city.

Pan Jijun said that in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Humen began to gradually move toward the garment manufacturing industry from selling clothes on the street. In the 1990s, Humen apparel commerce continued to upgrade. In 1993, under the leadership of the town government, the “Fumin Commercial Building” was built and became Humen’s first large-scale professional clothing market. Since then, garment commerce and manufacturing have formed a virtuous circle, which has created a large number of business owners and GDP for the city, and has become a source of financial resources for development and a guide for the urban landscape.

Amazing historical coincidences are enough to prove the relationship between Lecong and Humen. In the early 1990s, it was also a key stage of the Lecong Furniture Trade and Business Industry, but also in 1993, Lecong was established as the first professional furniture market “International Furniture City”, and the future ten-furniture promenade began to form.

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

As we enter this century, Humen continues to develop at a rapid rate. Every year countless garments are transported out of this busy town and traveled through cars, trains and steamships. If clothing worn on everyone can be considered an influence, then Humen's influence has already spread throughout the world.

This glory reached a new peak in 2005. In September of this year, the nation’s first review of “a thousand strong towns”, Humen ranked first among the top 1000 towns in China. This year's vibrant music is also ranked 32nd among the top 1000 towns. In the year before the selection, China Light Industry Confederation and China Furniture Association just granted Lecong the title of "China Furniture Trade Capital".

Urbanization was still a fresh concept in the year. In the first Qianqiang Town activity, representatives from some of the top 1000 town governments and experts from the country also visited Humen to discuss the direction and mode of future development of small cities and towns in China. Needless to say, Humen at the time was a model for the development of the township in the country.

However, a subtle turning signal came later. In the second election of the Qiandao Town held in 2006, Humen’s top spot was taken by another opponent—Yushan Town, Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province. The score of Lecong also dropped to 38. Not only between these two towns, but also in the following years, the townships in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta have become increasingly fierce.

"Inter-town interaction" crisis?

As the industry matures, the question that needs to be taken into consideration in both places is how far can we develop trade flows and product design R&D in the area of ​​towns. How far can we go?

Another obvious synchronization node between Humen and Lecon was in 2008. This year, the domestic garment industry has become more and more popular and Humen clothing has been overshadowed. In Lecong, which relies heavily on overseas markets, sales of furniture have also ushered in cold winds.

After the financial crisis subsided slightly, at the end of 2009, the 14th China Humen International Apparel Fair was opened, and some media outlets directly hit the headline of “Trade Fair Crisis”. A reporter asked officials: Humen's annual production of 200 million sets of garments, total production and sales of 15 billion yuan***, an average of 75 yuan per set, the added value is so low, what are the advantages of the industry?

In response, the relevant person in charge of Humen Town responded that the local garment industry has a strong manufacturing and manufacturing link, but the R&D link is weak, and there is a certain gap between the research and development capabilities and the design level and the advanced level at home and abroad, relying more on external innovation forces.

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

The problem of combing Humen and Lecong has a lot to do with the carrier environment. Although the total economic output of the two cities far exceeds that of many county-level cities, the streets are still full of “town” taste. As the industry matures, it is increasingly necessary for the two places to face squarely. What is the distance between the development of commercial and commercial circulation and product design and R&D in the area of ​​the town?

In fact, the problem that Lecong Furniture's "technical level and space layout can not meet the internal requirements of modern cities" also exists in Humen. The garment factories and markets that occupy a lot of space, if they can't further enhance the benefits, will undoubtedly slow the pace of Humen's urban development.

Wang Ming, an advertising sales manager who often travels between Humen and Guangfo, remembers that around 2007, Humen still lacked office buildings of a modern significance. Many companies were popular at the hotel for long-term office rentals, and their monthly rent was expensive.

In the past a long period of time, eye-catching economic data and new constructions that have been successively built are still difficult to hide Humen’s lack of development planning. By 2010, there were only more than 1,000 temporary parking spaces in the central area of ​​Humen, and there were 120,000 cars. Officials even added parking lots and wrote government work reports.

The urban development of Lecong is not entirely optimistic. From the perspective of some local people in Foshan, Lecong is compared with towns and villages such as Guicheng, which is 10 kilometers away. “The difference in urban development is ten years.” The flow of rolling furniture on the promenade did not directly result in a good living environment. Although it was close to the central area of ​​Foshan, the increase rate of Lecong's housing prices in the past few years caused many owners to frown.

Between the town and the city, the image of Humen and Lecong is blurred. Last year, the Guangdong professional town transformation and upgrading summit forum was held at a breeze. The provincial government counselor Chen Hongyu summed up the development of music from the past as “interaction between towns and towns”.

For this reason, to some extent, Humen and Lecong are still in the stage of “product-town interaction” to the real “product-city interaction”.

The market grows tall and heads for the “Mall”

The positioning of the “International Mall” relies heavily on the apparel industry. One side detail is that the official micro-blog of Humen Town Economic and Trade Office, which currently has more than two million fans, has directly adopted the screen name “Humen clothing”.

Walking into the vicinity of Humen Fumin Fashion City, the buyers coming and going are like the traffic on the Lecong Furniture Corridor, revealing the overwhelming sunshine of the entire South China clothing market. The old generation of Humen clothing shopping district, comprising Fumin Fashion City and other carriers, is located in the central area of ​​Humen. There are more than 20 garment wholesale markets within 1 square kilometer. The flow of people is highly concentrated, but the property is approaching aging.

In the combination of industry and city, the trade carrier is undoubtedly the first front. Humen clothing sits on the whole industry chain, but the rise has been one of the four industries of commerce, commerce and trade, and even clothing and Humen. After 2008, Humen, who had witnessed the crisis in the industry, began to plan a new clothing business district, trying to increase the strength of the garment industry through the market.

Just about 3 kilometers away from the “old business district,” the 23-storey Fumin Garment Business Center was seen as the beginning of the rise of a new business district in Humen. The center is no longer a purely professional market. While there are 1,000 shops, there are about 100,000 square meters of commercial office buildings.

Since then, the high-rise integrated market carriers such as Fumin Garment Twin City have risen in the new business district. Although popularity has been questioned for a time, the new shopping district still slowly grows. The concept of "re-business" continued from the clothing business district to Humen. Also in 2009, the town proposed to build "Binhai International Mall."

This idea gradually matured and continued. At the time, Humen was also the first area in the Pearl River Delta to create a “memory mall”. Professor Wang Xianqing of Guangdong University of Finance and Economics once said yes. He believes that compared with other townships in Dongguan, the transformation and upgrading still remain in the manufacturing industry, Humen has positioned the transformation focus on the service industry.

It is not difficult for people with discerning eyes to see that “international shopping mall” relies heavily on the apparel industry. One side detail is that the official micro-blog of Humen Town Economic and Trade Office, which currently has more than two million fans, has directly adopted the screen name “Humen clothing”.

The positioning of the international shopping mall undoubtedly imposes higher requirements on the city. In 2011, tens of billions of yuan was invested, and ten key projects in Humen, including the urban framework, headquarters economy, and conventions and exhibitions, were announced. Behind the huge investment in reshaping the city, the Humen, mentality and perspective have changed significantly. In a speech the following year, the relevant person in charge of Humen Town proposed that Humen should "plan the development of Humen according to the modern medium-sized urban structure."

In the battle for the front end, the billions of ambitions that took away the town of Yushan, which had won the championship of the Qianlong Town, and the GDP of Kunshan High-tech Zone now reached 59 billion. Although there is no real competition, the signal from the Yangtze River Delta still suggests Lecong and Humen. The continued growth of the township economy still has enormous room for imagination.

The terror opponents in close proximity to Shenzhen are both enlightenment and inspiration. In the free market selection, industrial resources such as fashion trends, fashion design, and innovation technology tend to gather in cities rather than professional towns. This means that behind the industrial development of the two places, the difference between the town, the street and the city may continue to expand.

The market is fierce and fast-moving. Before it becomes a "modern, medium-sized city," Humen must provide solutions directly from industrial resources. Compared with the downstream business of the industrial chain, design and manufacturing at the front end are more difficult to upgrade.

In the same period as Humen’s proposal to build an “international seaside mall”, he was also seeking front-end resources and established Guangdong South China Furniture Design Institute and Home International Creative Alliance. Then in early 2012, the town clearly put forward the development of the furniture creative design industry, seized the high end of the value chain, and transformed the furniture design capital.

Humen's actions are even more eager. At the end of the same year, the local authorities issued a series of related documents and proposed a series of measures, including the construction of creativity, branding, fashion information, and e-commerce, etc., centered around the apparel industry. It plans to invest 120 million yuan to establish a national apparel innovation service center.

For many garment companies, some of the resources behind these words have been out of reach. It is worth mentioning that a few months before the document was issued, a news report that “a number of Humen corporate headquarters ran away” also caused concern. The news stated that some companies “take away the highest value-added R&D design and marketing of the company. And other departments, leaving the production link in Dongguan alone."

This confirms Humen's enormous pressure from the side. Small, low-tech small enterprises cannot afford to bear the burden of transformation, while large and medium-sized enterprises are eager for a new environment.

Among the information that reporters can access publicly, this is the largest supportive planning for the garment industry in its history. Humen hopes to strive to achieve annual sales of over 50 billion yuan in apparel apparel industry clusters within two years, driving Dongguan apparel apparel industry cluster annual sales of over 100 billion yuan.

However, Humen's overall strength is still "fierce." At the end of last year, at the end of last year, Humen won the "Research Report on Guangdong's Comprehensive Economic Development in Towns and Towns in 2012", and Lecong ranked sixth.

However, compared with the GDP of Humen of 34.8 billion yuan in 2012, the GDP of Yushan Town, which took away the top 1000 championships, and the current Kunshan Hi-tech Zone, have reached 59 billion yuan. Although there is no real competition, the signal from the Yangtze River Delta is still suggesting Lecong and Humen, and there is still huge room for imagination in the sustained growth of the town-region economy.

About Humen Humen Town is located in the southwest of Dongguan, adjacent to Guangzhou Nansha National New District. An area of ​​178.5 square kilometers. After more than three decades of rapid development, Humen has become a famous "Chinese clothing and apparel city" featuring women's wear, children's wear and casual wear at home and abroad. There are more than 2300 garment manufacturing and processing companies and more than 1,000 supporting enterprises. The annual output value exceeds 20 billion yuan.

Observing the backside of two 200-meter high-rise buildings in the eye, Sofitel Oriental opened its doors in the first high-rise of Humen and the 230-meter-high Yellow River Center Tower in 2010. It was a sensation. A year later, the French Accor International Hotel Group signed a contract with Lecong Louvre Furniture Group. The two sides announced that they will jointly operate the first Sofitel Hotel in Foshan in the 236-meter-high Louvre headquarters building.

From Humen to Lecong, a multinational luxury hotel brand chose two places that retained the name of “town”, which made people lament the pride of Humen and Lecon, and the similarity of inner qualities. Looking solely at the professional markets of high-rise buildings and styles, their strength and urban atmosphere even rival those of some capital cities.

However, in the streets and streets where people really walk, the previous impressions will be suddenly split. People who first arrived in Foshan, who witnessed the lorries on the promenade, may mistakenly believe that they are willing to live in the outskirts. In the central area of ​​Humen, it is not difficult to find a similar atmosphere. Just like on a canvas that is almost full of color, even the best painters can only clean up and improve. Based on the history that has been formed for many years, it will be difficult for the large-scale construction to break through the embarrassment of planning and layout in the short term.

Especially in the case where companies and even industrial belts are heavily dependent on the existing situation, not all companies can achieve a balance between cost and revenue in a brand new urban environment. Not all merchants can accept incremental prices under new conditions. Therefore, no one can implement pure dreams of idealistic city-building.

Because of this, you can feel a strong struggle inside Humen or Lecong. A new city hopes to replace the previous appearance, but in this process, almost every street can feel the tenacity of the respective positions of the city and the town. hold fast.

Such Humen and Lecong will usher in the observation of the turmoil in the international market. Journalists from Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou asked for prices in the clothing city and the furniture town, and understood the flow of passengers in taxis. Observers who want to see the “China Furniture Trade Capital” and “City of Wear” often begin to have suspicions while seeing the surrounding environment.

Not only is the outside world's suspicions, Humen and Lecong have long felt the crisis. In one of the government planning documents of the two places, there is a vocabulary that says, "The advantage of first-mover gradually disappears." In fact, aside from the competition in the outside world, the rising costs have indeed put pressure on companies that are still relying on high prices and low prices to win.

It's hard to imagine a wardrobe that can enter the Milan International Furniture Fair. It's a place full of towns and streets, and it's hard to imagine the fashion on models on the T-stage in Paris and New York coming from a low factory building. By the way, it can be mentioned that just this month, Shenzhen fashion companies made their debut in New York Fashion Week after attending London Fashion Week for five consecutive years.

After reading and understanding Humen, they also learned about the destiny of the professional towns of Lecong and the Pearl River Delta. The bitterness and joy of both places can bring inspiration to the professional towns of the Pearl River Delta. The author's conjecture is that the modern manufacturing industry will enter the stage where the city is king, and the industrial clusters with resources fragmented and confined to professional towns can only retreat to the second line. Professional towns must get rid of the town's self-consciousness and move toward the city, and this process will inevitably mean many bumpy challenges.

Humen pillar industries outside the relevant garment halo:

The annual output value of electronic information industry exceeds 30 billion yuan In July of this year, the electronic industry park project invested by China Electronic Information Industry Group was finally finalized at the site of Humen. This project plans to invest more than 6 billion yuan, and projects with an annual production value of about 16 billion yuan will be built into a world-class park.

Apart from Humen's garment halo, the electronic information industry is a relatively less well-known pillar industry in Humen. According to Pan Jijun, member of the Humen Town Party Committee, Humen is one of the earliest townships in Dongguan to develop the electronics industry. The current annual output value has exceeded 30 billion yuan.

According to the plan, Humen's new round of urban construction will create “a central business district and four economic sectors”. Among them, the central section focuses on apparel industry clusters and plans to form a 10 square kilometer central business district. China Electronics Industry Park, on the other hand, occupies the northeast section of the four major sections. The other three sections are the Southern International Logistics Park, the West Weiyuan Cultural and Ecological Tourism Island, and the new transportation hub in the north.

It is understood that China Electronic Information Industry Group is the largest state-owned IT enterprise in China. Humen hopes that the park will become an important electronic industry base in China and will use this park as a leader to promote the development of Humen's electronic information industry to high-end.

According to the person in charge of Humen, due to the development mode of the rugged economy in the past years, Humen has a large number of industrial plants that have taken up urban space. At present, the development of urban industries has become an inevitable choice. Humen will promote the integration of the modern production industry, high-end manufacturing industries, and science and technology companies, and promote the integration of urban lifestyles with the development of modern industries.