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Changes Concern China’s Hanger Makers |
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| Release time:2013-04-08 Source:admin Reads: | |
| Lipu, a small land-locked county in southwest China, is located near the country's famed tourist spot Guilin, in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. But instead of tourism, Lipu emerges as China's major manufacturing base for clothing and belt hangers. Over the past few years, about 2 billion clothing hangers were manufactured annually by 126 makers in Lipu, accounting for a dominant 80 percent of the country's total output. The hanger manufacturing sector employs 30,000 local residents in the county, with a population of 370,000 and contributes 30 percent to the local government's tax income. Ninety percent of belt hangers made in Lipu are for export, statistics from the county's commerce bureau show. But Lipu officials and businessmen said rising costs of labor and raw materials since last year has squeezed out profits from the sector and is now seriously threatening the survival of China's "capital of hangers." "The hanger sector of Lipu is like a kid reaching puberty," said Liu Yingchun, head of Lipu County. "It is suffering from a lack of nutrition as the shortage in funds, resources, technology, and labor are threatening to kill the sector in market competition." The cost of labor has doubled since last year, the cost of wood has grown over 30 percent, and the cost of transportation is surging with the rise in oil prices, said Chen Caihua, deputy general manager of Guilin Betterall Household Articles Co. Ltd., a leading hanger producer in Lipu. Companies providing belt hangers have started to invest heavily on research and development in order to cut labor costs, Chen said. "Despite technological innovations, the profits were halved," he said. Lipu is just one of the many labor-intensive workshop-style manufacturing bases in China which are facing the pinch of rises in costs, particularly the cost of labor, at a time when the country's advantage in cheap and abundant labor is quickly vanishing. |
