Socks- The Chinese Story

As we can make 100% leather shoes can we make 100% Ethiopian cotton socks?


The Chinese story


Seventeen years ago, Datang county in Zhejiang province only had about 1,000 people living there. Most of them worked on the fields to earn a living. Datang's GDP per capita now exceeded 14 thousand US dollars a year, while the average figure in China is only 1,300 US dollars. The rapid growth came not from government or foreign investment, but a very ordinary daily necessity - socks. Wu Jia has the story: Among the 70 thousand residents in the county's 120 villages, over 10 thousand make a living from sock manufacturing. Thirty-two year old Fu Xianghua is one of them. Walking into her small workshop, the first thing you see are the 16 knitting machines that fill most of the room spinning 24 hours a day, stopping only for maintenance during the traditional Spring Festival.

The machines are almost her entire fortune, each costing her 160 thousand yuan, or 20 thousand US dollars. She said she can get her investment back in three to five years. As long as you have enough machines and hands, orders are countless, mainly from factories for exports. All her family members are involved in the industry. "My older brother and sister are selling socks out of town and my daughter has gone to help them. I'm quite interested in this industry and one day I will go out to have a look at how other people are doing in this business." If anything is wrong with her machine, all she needs to do is walk down to the next street and make a call to any of the 60-odd businessmen who sell second hand equipment and spare parts who will come to her workshop immediately. If she needs a batch of pins to tie down the socks together into dozens, she can go to a market in town where there are special stores that sell metallic pins for socks. There are 10 thousand pins in each batch selling for no more than 20 yuan, or 2.5 US dollars. "I'm from Shandong Province. I'm not here to do business, but just to have a look. Datang's socks are famous all around China. How can I miss visiting here? It's the biggest sock market in China." Though it seems that the market is not crowded at all, wholesale is the major source of income for businessmen here. For instance, flesh-colored stockings for women sell at 21 yuan, or 2.5 US dollars, for 100 pairs. The low price is attributed to a complete manufacturing chain in the town, from raw materials to packing to transportion, all of which can be accomplished within Datang. Manufacturers, suppliers and dealers work closely to form an entire network for the industry. The local government has realized how important the network is and supports its future development. Head of the town, Yang Guozhong, has this to say. " The government should serve the enterprises and meanwhile guide the industry to develop healthily. As a government official, my priority is to consider how to make Datang the best in the world and make our residents affluent."

Now that Datang makes 35% of the world's socks, Yang said the town's growth during the past 17 years has dramatically changed the living conditions of local residents. "The residents in our town are quite affluent. Every household has two computerized telephones. There are 20 cars for every 100 households. Some families now have five to six cars already." Socks not only make Datang people rich, but also inspire them to strive to improve their businesses. Hong Dongying has been dedicated to the sock-making industry for 23 years. She has witnessed changes from hand-powered knitting machines to domestically made machines and the imported machines used now. Socks have become a huge part of her life. "Every time I touch a new sock, I'll put my hand in it to find out how it was made, how good its quality is and what the interior material is. I think it's an instinct. I'll immediately compare it with socks from my factory." She now owns a company that makes over 100 million pairs every year and sell socks to Japan and Europe. Besides making profits, there's another responsibility for Hong and her company. "We have to help tens of thousands of small workshops under our factory who make subsidiary products for us. Since they don't have the capability of designing and innovating nor can they export, we have to design new patterns, make them out, contact international buyers and attend big expos for more and more orders. When we get the orders, we'll organize the households to produce. My factory only makes middle- and high-quality products." In fact, there are hundreds of towns in Zhejiang like Datang which make a single and common daily necessity, such as lighters, toys, socks and small appliances. Wenzhou makes 550 million lighters every year, accounting for 70% of the world's total production volume. There are over 10 thousand patterns and three new patterns produced every day. Many world-famous brands, including the Colibri and the Ronson from the US, have chosen Wenzhou as their manufacturing base. The city has also taken the place of Japan and South Korea to become the world's largest lighter manufacturing center.