At the supervision operation site of Dongguan Customs, a subsidiary of Huangpu Customs, a batch of wooden tea sets carrying oriental aesthetics have been inspected and released, and will soon travel across the ocean to the living rooms of European and American consumers.
It is reported that from January to February this year, the trading company to which the goods belong has exported 35 batches of wooden tea sets.
This is not only an ordinary customs clearance of goods, but also a microscopic projection of Dongguan’s new foreign trade momentum.
At a time when “good things to please oneself” are popular all over the world, Dongguan, once famous for its electronic products, is now handing the “golden business card” of tea culture to the world, thereby helping the “foreign trade market” gain a foothold in global trade.
According to Huangpu Customs statistics, in the first four months of this year, Dongguan’s total foreign trade import and export value exceeded 510 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%, ranking fifth in the country.
In this hot spot for foreign trade, a large number of companies that rely on new business formats such as cross-border e-commerce to “borrow ships to go overseas” have sprung up, promoting the transformation of the foreign trade structure into a direction of high added value, multiple export destinations, green and low carbon.
Private enterprises play the leading role, and market entities show strong resilience
Behind the outstanding report card, private enterprises are the well-deserved “main force”.
Data show that in the first four months of this year, Dongguan’s private enterprises imported and exported 321.16 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%, accounting for 62.7% of the city’s total import and export value.
Against the backdrop of profound adjustments to the global economic and trade landscape and increasing external uncertainties, Dongguan private enterprises have demonstrated resilience and vitality beyond expectations, becoming the core supporting force for stable growth.
Leading enterprises rely on complete industrial chains and hard-core R&D capabilities to stabilize production and supply and support the market; a large number of small, medium and micro enterprises rely on their flexible operating advantages to accurately capture overseas segmented demand and proactively explore emerging markets.
Dongguan Jinhongsheng Electric Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Jinhongsheng”) is a typical representative of small, medium and micro enterprises.
This company located in Changping Town specializes in mobile air conditioners, dehumidifiers, outdoor air conditioners and other specialty home appliances.
From January to April this year, the export value of enterprises increased by 12.6% year-on-year, and the export quantity increased by 14.97% year-on-year. Against the background of the overall pressure on the industry, such a growth rate is particularly rare.
Zhang Longlin, financial director of Jinhongsheng, said that market expansion is essentially a matter of excellent products. “We launch multiple new products every year, and through precise product upgrades, we successfully adapt to the differentiated market standards of different regions.”
In order to better cope with the stringent quality inspection standards of the Japanese market, the company’s technical team continues to work on key problems. On the premise of ensuring cooling capacity, it constantly optimizes the compressor structure and air duct design, and successfully launches a new generation of products that are smaller and quieter.
At the same time, in response to the strict environmental protection requirements of the European market, companies continue to improve the energy efficiency levels of their products, gradually forming dual market competitiveness of greenness and intelligence.
It is precisely by virtue of its complete industrial chain supporting facilities, rapid response delivery capabilities, and stable and controllable quality system that Dongguan companies have become reliable partners for global customers.
All of this is the fundamental reason why Dongguan’s foreign trade can go through cycles and resist various market risks.
Nuggets’ “new blue ocean”, diversified markets to hedge risks
The driving force for foreign trade growth increasingly comes from emerging markets.
According to statistics, in the first four months of this year, Dongguan’s imports and exports to countries co-building the “Belt and Road” totaled 177.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.5%, accounting for more than 30% of the city’s total imports and exports; its imports and exports to emerging markets such as India, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa all achieved double-digit growth.
The transformation of Houjie furniture industry is a vivid microcosm.
In the past, Dongguan’s traditional furniture industry encountered growth bottlenecks in a single traditional market. Now, by proactively adjusting its market layout, it has broken into a new world in emerging markets such as the Middle East.
Aiming at the high-end home furnishing consumption track in the Middle East, local brands such as Oujijia, Changshi Furniture, and Ruitong Home Furnishing in Houjie have abandoned the old path of OEM and made a leap from a single “product overseas” to “brand overseas + service overseas”. From product design to process research and development, they have achieved independent control over the entire link, and simultaneously provided a complete set of solutions such as space design, scene creation, and sales tools.
The results of this transformation were evident at the beginning of this year. Containers full of Houjie furniture were continuously shipped to India, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries and regions.
Among them, Kabin Home Furnishing, a subsidiary of Ojijia, has deployed 15 overseas stores around the world, and plans to open new stores in cities such as Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the next few months to continue to expand the Middle East market.
In order to help enterprises accelerate their deployment in emerging markets, Dongguan proactively planned and mobilized accurately and launched a series of supply and demand matching activities.
For example, in view of the huge potential of the Latin American market, Dongguan invites business leaders and procurement representatives from Chile, Colombia and other countries to have face-to-face negotiations with local high-quality manufacturing companies in Dongguan to break through the difficulties in connecting supply and demand and build an efficient bridge for companies to explore the Latin American market.
From the spontaneous transformation of enterprises to the precise empowerment of the government, more and more market entities in Dongguan are adhering to “walking on two legs” and vigorously exploring emerging markets while deeply cultivating traditional markets.
This “multi-point blooming” pattern has not only brought a steady stream of new growth points to Dongguan’s foreign trade, but also allowed “Made in Dongguan” to make steady progress in the global market.
Breaking through the “new”, the quality and quality of high value-added products have improved
In the intelligent manufacturing workshop of Dongguan Huabei Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Huabei Electronics”), the automated production line is running at high speed.
After batches of integrated circuit motherboards are assembled, they will be sent to brand manufacturers around the world.
As a hidden champion in the field of smart hardware ODM (Original Design Manufacturer), Hua Bei Electronics has long since gotten rid of the pure OEM label.
Different from traditional OEM production, Hua Bei Electronics has achieved full chain coverage from “creative conception” to “finished product delivery” and has become an “all-rounder” who understands both R&D and design and is proficient in intelligent manufacturing, allowing brands to directly obtain final products that can be sold on the market.
Huabei Electronics’ transformation is the epitome of Dongguan manufacturing’s transition to “intelligent manufacturing”.
In the first four months of this year, Dongguan City’s exports of high-tech products increased by 26.5% year-on-year, and the growth rate was 21.1 percentage points higher than the city’s export average.
Among them, competitive products such as integrated circuits and mobile phones increased by 41% and 26.9% year-on-year respectively.
“Currently, our cumulative authorized patents have reached more than 400, and the added value of technology has increased significantly.” said the person in charge of the Customs Affairs Department of Huabei Electronic Logistics.
In addition to electronic components, the “three new items” represented by lithium batteries also performed well.
As an important lithium battery production base in the country, Dongguan has more than 500 production-oriented export companies, relying on a complete industrial chain to go overseas.
Entering Guangdong Boliwei Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Boliwei”), automated robotic arms are packaging groups of high-performance lithium batteries, and they will leave for Europe within 24 hours.
With its strong technical strength, Boliwei has not only opened the door to the international high-end market, but also won the world’s first electric bicycle battery certification certificate under the new EU standards in September last year.
In order to promote the efficient overseas expansion of “Dongguan Intelligent Manufacturing”, Huangpu Customs used smart reform as a breakthrough to create a scenario of “Smart Supervision of Export Lithium Battery Packaging”.
By building the “Lithium Battery Export One Thing” platform, the originally cumbersome offline review was moved to the “iWanjia” online platform, and AI image recognition technology was introduced to achieve intelligent comparison.
“Now the process is all online, the progress can be checked at any time, and the appraisal time has been shortened from one week to one hour. It is often possible to deliver orders and collect evidence on the same day.” Wu Jing, Customs Manager of Boliwei, said with emotion.
This reform has shortened the inspection and release time by about 90% for enterprises, and reduced the logistics cost of a single batch by 15%, giving high value-added products more confidence to compete in overseas markets.
