At the end of last year, guests from government and enterprises of both China and Germany visited Sino-German Metal Eco-City for investigation

 

    In an evening of June 2013, Lin Zhongwei, with an age of more than 50, took out his diary that was kept when he was in Germany. During over ten days in Germany, he wrote down in the diary the things he saw including stainless steel garbage cans by the road, door hinges of the hotel room and bathroom glass clamps, all of which cover 26 pages in total. Especially during the visit to Hesse Trade Union, Lin drew down the structure diagram of the meeting table.

 

    As a Jieyang boss, who got rich first, Lin Zhongwei went to Germany for travelling and shopping with his family last time; while this time he as the executive president of the MEUJ, wished to introduce German advanced technology to Jieyang because there his partners were busy with a project named “Sino-German Metal Eco-City”.

 

    A group of Jieyang bosses of metal enterprises have flied to Germany to seek for teachers to establish a high-level industry association rather than totally rely on the government. They try their best to create a new developmental pattern with their own power, and then boost the regional economy.

 

    In November, a new definition of “market plays a decisive role” was made in the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee. The MEUJ becomes a pioneer in Guangdong to lead the economic and social reform in China.
　　

    Establish the highest level association

    Jieyang, a small city in eastern Guangdong, began the metal production in Ming Dynasty, and now the metal industry has become one of the famous pillar industries in Jieyang.

 

    Over 2,000 metal enterprises in the whole city created an output value of more than 58 billion RMB in 2012. The huge metal industry enables Jieyang to become an important production base of metal industry in the whole country.

 

    However, the other side of the coin is not quite bright.

    After the financial crisis, the domestic and foreign market of metal industry had poor conditions and a lack of demand, confronting a risk of excessive competition. The overall anti-risk capability of metal industry in Jieyang is weak for the acute problem of low added value. The industry suffers a great blow, in the meanwhile, as a typical “three-high and one-low”industry, environmental pollution has become a prominent problem.

 

    The metal industry is facing a contradiction. To reject it? But how can a pillar industry be easily given up? How to accept it? The development of the industry is hard to sustain, and the environmental pollution brings huge negative effect. The entrepreneurs and the government are annoyed with the problem, and have no idea to solve it.

 

    “The enlightenment to establish the MEUJ comes from the Jieyang municipal leaders. In an investigation, Jieyang municipal leaders knew about our difficulties in metal industrial development in Jieyang and suggested why not establish an industrial alliance to huddle together for warmth since individual strength is weak.” President of the MEUJ Wu Kedong looked back upon the situation of foundation and still felt excited.

 

    After that, many metal entrepreneurs thought the words reasonable. As before, Jieyang has four metal industry associations, but the power of each is decentralized, and respectively represents a typical area of the metal production. The establishment of industrial alliance covers the whole industrial chain both upstream and downstream, uniting the industrial strength to highlight the brand of Jieyang metal. What’s more, the industrial pattern of metal industry in Jieyang as a saying ‘only stars are saw but no moon’ undoubtedly causes the industry to have more cohesion and influence, and it is also convenient for getting governmental support to enterprises.

 

     “OK, just do it!” At one internal meeting among the metal enterprises, over sixty entrepreneurs reached an agreement to establish the MEUJ through repeated heated discussion. “Jieyang entrepreneurs who got used to caring for their own business have never been so united.” Wu Kedong said.

   

    Eventually, the first organization in a form of industrial alliance in Guangdong was founded, and this high-level business organizational form only appears in the area in which the market economy highly develops. Afterwards, from members cooperating respectively to taking financial risk together, raising industrial funds of 1 billion yuan, setting up operating projects of wholly-owned companies... Everything this industrial alliance did was a precedent in the whole nation.

 

    Now when mentioning the MEUJ, the metal entrepreneurs in Jieyang can talk a lot. For example, smile curve, demographic dividend, these phrases can be often heard from them.

 

    However, the MEUJ should make a decision to solve the problem with the root of the Jieyang metal industry.

 

    Seek for the best teacher around the world

    Rongshen Tape Company owned by Sun Genghao, has a famous trademark in Guangdong Province, but the price of products is only 10% of the same ones in Germany or America.

 

    “Although these tapes are small, our materials, technology and design cannot catch up with foreign level. A kind of simple technology enables the selling price of the tape to increase by 10 times, but the cost just doubles.” Sun wants to increase the value of the tapes produced by his company indeed, but all along the company is suffering for the shortage of technology and talents.

 

    “This is why we want to learn from Germany. As the same metal industry, it is high value-added in Germany while backward in Jieyang.” Wu Kedong says.

 

    The primary planning of the entrepreneurs is to plan and construct a metal ecological industrial park for the intensive production, the centralized pollution control and the centralized energy conservation in order to solve the pollution problem of Jieyang metal industry. But as successfully approaching Germany, “we are going to introduce German power to build a metal ecological city”, including six platforms of financing, human resources, trade and etc. to promote the upgrading of technology industry in Jieyang.

 

    Therefore, through the transformation and upgrading of competitive industries, not only the traditional industrial and economic supports are maintained, but also a new development space and a new regional economic growth point are created.

 

    No sooner said than done for Jieyang entrepreneurs. They show their amazing enthusiasm and determination, and they are brave to think and struggle.

 

    The business representative of the MEUJ Shen Jie says pleasantly, “Although Jieyang is not a rich place, but it is really like a hard-working student.” Shen feels much surprised with the idea of going outside for Jieyang and the active attitude of Sino-German cooperation. “In my past experience, I have never seen that the government and the entrepreneurs have such positive attitude.”

 

    This positive attitude yields favorable return. Jieyang set up connection with multiple parties of Germany. Former German Federal Minister of Defense Rudolf Scharping, member of German Bundestag Philipp Mißfelder, German Ministry of Economics and Technology Director of East Asian trade Gerlind came to Jietang one after another to promote the cooperation between both sides at all levels. As for the German federal government officials for Chinese affairs, “Jieyang”, “the Metal Enterprises Union of Jieyang” and “Sino-German Metal Eco-City” are some frequent words from then on.

 

    Now the first phrase of Sino-German Metal Eco-city has started construction, and there are 12 German enterprises that have already signed contracts, and 50 enterprises which have intention to cooperate. Three of them have already started construction. In a year, Sino-German Metal Eco-City grows out of nothing and expands from small to large at a high speed.

 

    However, these metal entrepreneurs in Jieyang have never talked about their efforts. During the arrival of Rudolf Scharping at Jieyang, Wu Kedong accompanied him all the time, “When he took a rest in the hotel at noon, we always waited in the hall downstairs.”

 

    Rudolf Scharping is always moved by this kind of enthusiasm and ingenuousness.

 

    To trust the power of the market

    The industrial transformation is a comprehensive systems engineering, requiring not only hardware-support such as capitals and lands, but also software-coordination such as labor quality, education level, social and economic development level, etc.

 

    The previous situation of Jieyang metal industry is that the enterprises were scattered with small scale and caring for their own business. During these years in the market of reversed transmission of pressure for easing monetary condition, the necessity of transformation and upgrading gathers entrepreneurs to face the problems and discuss to solve them together, even “huddle” in a form of organization. This is the power of the market.

 

    The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee proposes that the market should play a “decisive” role. Now is the crucial step of the readjustment of economic structure in China. on the whole, the innovation of Sino-German Metal Eco-City in concept, design and international cooperation are all based on the market elements, which is instructive to the industrial transformation and upgrading in Guangdong, and even in China.

 

    In China, the construction of ecological civilization is also an important mission. Metal Eco-City, just as its name implies, the determination of removing serious pollution is obviously made in metal industry. It is government who finds the industrial needs and acts as a go-between among domestic and foreign industrial associations and relevant organizations, to help enterprises find a way of controlling pollution.

 

    Someone says, the transformation and upgrading of Jieyang metal industry is a mode that if the electroplating industry becomes popular, any other industry can be. While someone says, Jieyang mode cannot be duplicated because the premise of centralized pollution control is an industrial cluster with comparable scale.

 

    Anyway, Jieyang’s attempt is leading a way out for transformation for innumerable industrial clusters in Guangdong.