久久亚洲国产成人影院-久久亚洲国产的中文-久久亚洲国产高清-久久亚洲国产精品-亚洲图片偷拍自拍-亚洲图色视频

US EUROPE AFRICA ASIA 中文
Business / Christmas business

Christmas chill hits manufacturing hub

By Alexis hooi and Qiu Quanlin (China Daily) Updated: 2011-12-17 10:15

Christmas chill hits manufacturing hub

Workers process plastic Christmas tree branches at the King Tree Handicrafts Company's factory in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on Dec 2. [Photo / China Daily] 

Factories reliant on holiday buying seek to cope with declining demand

SHENZHEN, Guangdong - Peng Hua watches two factory workers as they string up a bunch of plastic pine needles on a wire before twirling them into a branch in a largely empty warehouse.

It is the beginning of December in the outskirts of the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen and the air is a comfortable 20 C. But Peng, the 41-year-old general manager of King Tree Handicrafts Company, a leading Christmas tree maker in the manufacturing hub, is starting to feel the chill of winter in the West.

"We are already experiencing the effects of the economic crisis. Things are probably going to worsen for our industry," he said.

King Tree is one of about 200 businesses in the area that help the country churn out 90 percent of the plastic Christmas trees used in the world, Peng said. His company started making the trees in the late 1980s and rakes in about $20 million a year. The US market accounts for about 70 percent of the demand for the trees, and European buyers take up most of the rest, he said.

The busiest times for Christmas tree manufacturers in the area start between March and September every year, when orders for products ranging from desktop ornaments to enormous displays more than five-stories high are filled and factories move into full gear to churn out the goods before shipping them out. In the few months before Christmas, King Tree actually enters a lull period when less than one-quarter of its 400-strong workforce remains in its 50,000-square-meter factory, mostly to produce trees to meet domestic demand, which accounts for less than 5 percent of its business.

Peng said amid this year's bleak global economy, demand is expected to decrease and quite a few smaller businesses have already folded. Still, orders have not plunged as many expected, even though customers in the West already seem to be "downsizing" to simpler and cheaper products.

"A family that bought a tree with all the trimmings might now look for one without those for half the price," Peng said. "Many are also going for cheaper do-it-yourself products."

The full brunt of the slow US economy and Europe's debt crisis can only be felt when orders for next year's trees are received in the coming months, he said. But King Tree is bracing itself for lower profit margins.

"We were slowly recovering from the 2008 global financial crisis when business fell by up to 30 percent. But now, with the latest economic woes, we might see less growth, of about 15 percent. That space is getting smaller and smaller," he said.

"Like many other industries here in Shenzhen, we also have to deal with other economic challenges like the rising cost of labor and raw materials."

Shenzhen has become one of China's richest cities since it became a special economic zone in 1980 following the country's reform and opening-up. The city is in Guangdong province's Pearl River Delta (PRD) region, a main engine of China's economic development fueled by low-cost manufacturing and export-oriented industries, including textiles and electronics, mostly with initial investment from Hong Kong, that help make the province churn out a quarter of the country's exports.

Growing challenges

Chinese exports continue to increase every year, but they are doing so at the slowest pace since December 2009, figures from the General Administration of Customs show. Exports increased almost 16 percent year-on-year to more than $157 billion in October but that was the slowest growth in eight months. The total figure actually dropped from September's $169.7 billion, amid economic troubles in the US and Europe.

Similarly, currency appreciation and rising costs are squeezing the profits of many Chinese exporters. The yuan has gained about 10 percent against the US dollar since China ended a two-year peg to the dollar in June last year.

Labor, one of the main factors behind economic success in the PRD, is also threatening development in an area known for its inexpensive workforce. Many areas in the PRD are raising minimum wages along with rising inflation and labor shortages, as workers are less drawn to work in the region compared to their home provinces, where the cost of living is lower.

By the end of September, 21 local governments had raised the minimum wage by an average of 21.7 percent, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security reported.

Earlier this year, Shenzhen authorities said they would raise the minimum wage by 20 percent to 1,320 yuan ($208) a month - the highest in the country. There are now plans to increase that to 1,500 yuan a month next year. Wages in many areas in the PRD have risen more than 30 percent and pay for ordinary workers averages nearly 3,000 yuan a month. Peng said he expects his wages to continue rising.

"For the West, Christmas trees are a necessity during this time of the year. So mid-sized businesses like us will always be able to survive in one way or another. But the smaller players and the ones that make the ornaments and the decorations, already hit by rising costs, might feel any cutback in Christmas buying more severely," he said.

Chen Guanghan, an economics professor and director of the center for studies of Hong Kong, Macao and the Pearl River Delta at Sun Yat-sen University, said the smaller manufacturers in the PRD will most definitely suffer from decreasing orders for Christmas goods in the West.

"The small players will have no room to maneuver or upgrade and many of these will probably be the casualties of the economic downturn. The bigger players might be able to cope and many low-cost producers are already moving to even cheaper places overseas, such as Vietnam, even as they try to develop new markets away from the US and Europe," Chen said.

Zhang Yuge, director of the center for public policy at the Shenzhen-based China Development Institute, said that while the authorities have been making a pronounced push for PRD enterprises to upgrade and move away from the low-cost manufacturing model, it will not be easy to do so in the short term.

"Such manufacturing is certainly not sustainable for the long term. But for the moment, our export-oriented businesses still provide jobs for a large number of workers who would otherwise make much less in the countryside," Zhang said.

"The slow Christmas market has also reiterated how precarious it can be for businesses here to depend too much on exports."

"The rising wages are a very big challenge for us," Peng said.

"Our industry usually requires our workers to work overtime, otherwise we will not be able to fill the orders during the peak season. Our wages can be higher than those at other industries here, such as electronics."

Previous Page 1 2 Next Page

Hot Topics

Editor's Picks
...
主站蜘蛛池模板: 国产精品漂亮美女在线观看 | 九九色视频在线观看 | 欧美日韩中文一区二区三区 | 91免费永久国产在线观看 | 国产一区二区三区免费在线观看 | 国产成人毛片 | 亚洲精品不卡久久久久久 | 九九色综合 | 九九视频在线观看视频6偷拍 | 免费伦费一区二区三区四区 | 国产精品线在线精品国语 | 国产精品亚洲欧美 | 毛片直接看 | 国产精品青草久久久久福利99 | 久久精品一区二区三区中文字幕 | 美女把张开腿男生猛戳免费视频 | 看一级特黄a大一片 | 日韩经典中文字幕 | 欧美性另类69xxxx极品 | 伊人久久精品午夜 | 永久免费不卡在线观看黄网站 | 久草网在线观看 | 亚洲欧美人妖另类激情综合区 | 久久狠狠躁免费观看2020 | 二区久久国产乱子伦免费精品 | 成人午夜在线视频 | 成人a毛片在线看免费全部播放 | 美女双腿打开让男人桶爽网站 | 久久免费播放视频 | 国产成人精品久久二区二区 | 国产三级日产三级日本三级 | 视频在线一区二区三区 | 国产成人黄网在线免 | 国产精品一级毛片不收费 | 日韩一区二区天海翼 | 黄色亚洲网站 | 欧美另类 videos黑人极品 | 激情丝袜美女视频二区 | 在线亚洲自拍 | 国产精品色综合久久 | 玖玖国产在线 |