Dongguan Footwear Industry To Enhance The "Smile Curve" At Both Ends

Since the international financial crisis, Dongguan is in the eye of the storm. Some of the data are "not good-looking".

Since 2008, the city has added 89 R & D centers to foreign-funded enterprises, accounting for 90.8% of the total number of years.

In 2009, 19106 patents were granted and 12918 patents were granted. Both of them ranked second in the province, second only to Shenzhen.

In 2009, investment in industrial upgrading and transformation for the first time exceeded 10 billion yuan, reaching 15 billion 450 million yuan, an increase of 1.5 times compared with the same period last year.

In addition, in 2009, 988 processing trade enterprises in the city had their own brands and 2678 registered brands at home and abroad.

These data show that Dongguan manufacturing, which has been focused on processing and assembling, is undergoing new changes. It has begun to focus on R & D and brand marketing, and has been upgrading to both sides of the "smile curve". Many enterprises have begun to shift from original manufacturing to manufacturing, and some have even built their own brands, opening up the domestic and international markets.

Dongguan is determined to unswervingly accelerate the transformation of development mode, and its core is to promote the upgrading and transformation of processing trade.

Changjiang Ling, member of the Standing Committee of Dongguan Municipal Committee and vice mayor of Changjiang, said that promoting the upgrading and transformation of processing trade is to promote the extension of the traditional industry chain, from processing and manufacturing to R & D and brand marketing, and promote product processing from low to high development, constantly improving the technological content and added value of products, and helping qualified enterprises create new markets.

He said that the extension of industrial chain is an important direction. Dongguan shoemaking, furniture, clothing, toys and other industries have a good foundation. In the past, we should focus on manufacturing, and now we should focus on R & D, design and brand marketing to integrate industrial chains. At present, the apparel industry has completed the integration of industrial chain.

From OEM to ODM, the city's patent applications increased sharply last year.

In order to enhance the capability of independent innovation, Dongguan supports the innovation chain in different stages and links through innovation funds, R & D investment subsidy funds, R & D awards, loan discount and other policy projects. Liang Fengming, deputy director of the Municipal Science and Technology Bureau, said that since the implementation of the "science and technology Dongguan" project in 2006, the government has invested five hundred million or six hundred million yuan in this area every year, and has invested about 3000000000 Yuan to the present.

The enthusiasm of enterprises to invest in R & D has also been unprecedentedly high. The world's second largest optical disc equipment manufacturing enterprise Hongwei digital Machinery Co., Ltd., the average annual cost of research and development is more than 20% of the sales revenue. The company plans to invest 620 million yuan in the next two years. One of the largest glasses manufacturing enterprises in the world, the new eyeglasses Manufacturing Co., Ltd., has invested 10 million US dollars in the transformation to three foreign-invested enterprises, and set up a R & D center.

At the same time, the upsurge of technological transformation has arisen. The total investment of industrial upgrading in the city increased from 4 billion 460 million yuan in 2006 to 15 billion 440 million yuan in 2009, an increase of 246%. In the first quarter of this year, the city's technological transformation total investment of 1 billion 668 million yuan, an increase of 143.9% over the same period last year.

Enterprises actively participate in technological transformation and benefit from it. Last year, Nan Xing Woodworking Machinery Co., Ltd. invested about 60000000 yuan to carry out technological transformation, and developed a high-speed wood processing equipment with Huazhong University of Science and Technology to save 50% of the cost.

After more than a year's efforts, the industrial structure and development mode of Dongguan has changed, and gradually developed from OEM to ODM. Many enterprises began to gradually turn to technology research and development from the original processing and manufacturing.

Liang Fengming said that the consciousness and ability of independent research and development of enterprises has been improved. Taking patents as an example, from 1985 to 2000, the number of patent applications in Dongguan was 6154, compared with 19106 in the previous year, 3 times the total before 2000.

Jiang Ling said that now Dongguan has a good design and R & D capability, can undertake higher value-added products, do not need the other side to provide design drawings, as long as we provide market demand, we can design different styles according to needs, and strive for high-end in the international division of labor, and processing trade is more competitive.

A set of data that can illustrate the problem is that in 2009, Dongguan participated in the revision of 205 standards, formulated and promulgated 10 Union standards, and Dongguan undertook 293 projects above the provincial level, and received 1 billion 848 million yuan in funding.

Jiang Ling said that Dongguan is building an industrial design center. Through the existing technology base, Dongguan can make R & D design stronger.

Enterprises speed up their own brands, the number of Chinese famous brands ranks fifth in the province.

Under the impact of the financial crisis, the overseas market of many enterprises in Dongguan has shrunk sharply, and the mode of OEM is unsustainable. Under such circumstances, the brand awareness of enterprises has been constantly enhanced, and the transformation from OEM to brand creation has been accelerated.

Jiang Ling said that at the two ends of the industrial chain, Dongguan has the conditions for R & D design, but brand marketing is hard to do. Nevertheless, Dongguan is still trying to support some qualified enterprises to build brands. In order to encourage enterprises to create brand names, Dongguan has implemented the strategy of famous brand driving. In the past three years, the total amount of rewarded brand name enterprises has reached 88 million 400 thousand yuan.

The speed of creating brand is greatly accelerated. In 2009, there were 988 processing trade enterprises in the city with independent brands (parent company or Dongguan brand), an increase of 163 over 2008, an increase of 288 over 2007, and 2678 registered brands at home and abroad, an increase of 370 over 2008, and an increase of 610 over 2007. Up to now, the city has 421 famous brand names, including 20 well-known trademarks in China, 18 famous brand products in China, and fifth famous brands in China and Guangdong.

A group of enterprises successfully opened the market at home and abroad by creating brands. For example, a famous brand pilot enterprise, Dongguan City Qisheng Shoes Co., Ltd., its "Di Bao" Guangdong men's shoes, was named as the famous brand product in Guangdong Province and entered the US market.

Extending the industrial chain is also an industrial upgrading.

Generally speaking, there are two ways to upgrade and transform industries. One is to replace the old and relatively low-end industries by introducing new high-end industries. The other is "upgrading locally", improving and extending the industrial chain, and taking the middle and high end of the industrial chain from the low end of the industrial chain.

In the process of transformation of Dongguan's development mode, these two paths are all involved. Through "cage changing birds", Dongguan successfully transferred a group of enterprises with low added value, high energy consumption and high pollution. At the same time, Dongguan emphasized the upgrading on the spot and urged enterprises to stay together to upgrade.

For Dongguan, the latter is more realistic and urgent. On the one hand, "cage changing birds" is easy to give people a misunderstanding of "catching up factories" and "driving people". Moreover, the cage has been vacated, whether it can introduce "birds" and what kind of "birds" can be introduced. A reality that we must face up to is that Dongguan has been hoping to introduce big projects and big enterprises for many years, but the effect is not obvious.

On the one hand, although a large number of labor-intensive industries are at the low end of the industrial chain and the added value is not high, they have formed a perfect industrial chain and matching, and the industrial concentration degree is quite high. It is obviously impossible to abandon these industries. The more realistic way is to upgrade the existing industrial base, promote the improvement and integration of the industrial chain, and enhance the competitiveness of the manufacturing industry.

After more than a year's exploration, Dongguan's industrial restructuring has achieved initial success. Looking back, Dongguan's upgrading on the spot is a lot of action.

First of all, there is a good understanding of industrial upgrading. Dongguan has repeatedly explained that industrial upgrading is not to abandon traditional industries, but to transform and upgrade traditional industries and make them more competitive. Dongguan's experience shows that upgrading and upgrading existing industries is also an upgrade.

Secondly, industrial upgrading is very determined. The essence of local upgrading is to extend the industrial chain from the middle to the end of the "smile curve". This is a painful process. R & D and marketing are much more difficult than simple assembly. In the short term, it will reduce profits, be full of risks, and have great uncertainty. It needs capital investment and needs a lot of personnel support and policy support. At the beginning of the transformation, Dongguan put forward "four patience". Without such determination, there will be no achievement today.

Third, there is a very good policy for industrial upgrading. Dongguan has inherited the spirit of "taking the lead in the world". In view of the difficulties encountered by the processing trade enterprises in the upgrading of the industrial chain, it has promulgated the "1+26" policy document, constantly breaking through the policy barriers, targeted to help enterprises upgrade, and has explored many useful experiences in the transformation of processing trade, domestic sales and technological innovation. It is these highly operational policies that provide strong support for enterprise upgrading.