The Revolution On The Toes: Liaoyang, A Famous Town Of Sock Industry, Is In An Endless Stream Of Visitors

Seven nine rivers open, eight or nine swallows come.

In the first month of the year of the tiger, Northeast Asia light industry base is located in xiaobeihe Town, Liaoyang County, Liaoning Province.

People come here with different accents, including the boss of the neighboring city who is mainly engaged in e-commerce live broadcast, and the person in charge of the platform enterprise focusing on logistics and big data; There are entrepreneurs who are independent textile brands in Shenyang, the provincial capital, and businessmen from the South seeking to connect the supply chain... People are looking for business opportunities in xiaobeihe town.

In recent years, the little-known xiaobeihe has relied on the dense socks industry and textile industry to gather industry and seek market. More than 200 sock enterprises have an annual output of 2.5 billion pairs of cotton socks, enhancing the vitality of the town in building a "famous town of sock industry".

　　 Looking for treasure in socks and weaving new industries

Wang Xin, 64, is the first professional sock maker in xiaobeihe.

In the early days of reform and opening up, Liaoyang City, the first domestic "Dacron" in New China, was developed in light and textile industry. Many people used local yarn raw materials to weave socks in their spare time for money.

Wang Xin, who once worked as a repairman in a cotton mill, sniffed out the business opportunity and decided to resign to make a breakthrough. He and his wife borrowed money to buy two old-fashioned hosiery looms, and set aside their 24 square meter empty room as "factory buildings", becoming the first hosiery individual in the town.

The old hosiery loom needs to be moved by hand, and the hum is so loud that the husband and wife dare not leave for a moment. They even have to speak at their voices. At the end of a day, two hosiery looms can only weave more than 40 pairs of socks, and they always like to break down. Every time he replaced the parts, Wang Xin went to Shenyang and Beijing to buy them.

After weaving socks and saving enough varieties, Wang Xin became a "backpacker" again, filling his satchel with socks and going to the major cities to run the market. From Shenyang Wuai Market at the beginning, and then to Shanghai, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Hunan, etc., Wang Xin has traveled almost half of China with his hearty northeast dialect.

In this way, every time a batch of socks are sold, Wang Xin buys new hosiery machines and expands his "factory building". Seeing Wang Xin's "socks factory" getting more and more prosperous, the neighbors began to follow suit. For a while, residents along the street and village houses in xiaobeihe town have sprung up like mushrooms with various "earthy" names.

At the most time, there were more than 260 sock factories in xiaobeihe Town, with more than 20000 people engaged in the production and production of socks.

"Our industry started early, the number of hosiery factories is large, and the price of cotton socks is low, which is famous all over the country." Mention xiaobeihe socks industry "from scratch" and "from small to large", Lu Changhong, who had been vice mayor of industry in the town for 14 years, is full of pride.

However, due to the production status of stockings industry with village ignition and household smoking, people in xiaobeihe only see the prosperity of the industry surface, but ignore the problems of poor production equipment, short industrial chain, low added value of products and environmental pollution.

"At that time, I didn't have to wear my own socks. Why? Because the materials were not good, they were easy to stink." Some local hosiery factory owners admitted that they were crowded in their own yard to produce socks, and the finished products were piled up all over the yard, and the purchasers had no place to go. And the quality of socks is not high, sales can only rely on price down.

"In the long run, there have been some problems in xiaobeihe, such as no market for stockings factories, vicious competition at low prices, and scattered industries. With low awareness of environmental protection and great potential safety hazards, such industries are easy to be eliminated by the market." Shen Cong, the mayor of xiaobeihe Town, said that it was only in recent years that the stockings factory in the whole town had undergone great changes and entered a new stage of transformation and upgrading.

　　 Take small steps to explore the road of "breaking the circle"

The first thing to face in the transformation and upgrading is the market problem.

Before 2015, many sock factories still relied on "Backpackers" to sell socks. They were either peddling along the street or squatting in wholesale markets in strange cities. Even if there are buyers, who can pick out the most satisfied one among hundreds of socks factories in the town?

"I don't know how many times I've been rejected. If you're scolded, you'll have to smile." Jiao Qi, the boss of Liaoning Muse socks Co., Ltd., said that although xiaobeihe stockings industry has been deeply cultivated for many years, it has not been "broken" and "others only know that there are socks in the northeast, but they don't know xiaobeihe."

"We have been looking for ways to break the circle." Lu Changhong said that in 2017, in view of the current situation of "there is a sock factory but no market", the town built a sock art city to help the sock factories to display in a centralized way, so as to facilitate foreign businessmen to come and order in summer and winter.

What Lu Changhong didn't expect was that the sock art city had just been built, and that year's ordering season ushered in guests from all directions. In the exhibition room of Sox Art City, businessmen from all over the country can directly sign contracts with sock factories and establish cooperation with them.

This makes Lu Changhong firm to expand market confidence.

In 2019, xiaobeihe organized upstream and downstream enterprises of socks industry to go to Guangzhou in the form of industrial clusters to participate in the spring and Autumn "Canton Fair". Foreign businessmen came to visit, consult and cooperate on the spot, and an intention cooperation of 4 million yuan was reached on the spot.

The exhibition also brought inspiration to the sock enterprises in the town: "the foreign market is large, and the gross profit of each pair of socks is equal to more than twice of that of the domestic market, excluding tariff and transportation costs."

After this, the rise of small cotton socks "overseas tide.". In addition to increasing domestic sales, xiaobeihe is also encouraging and supporting sock enterprises to actively go out and explore overseas markets.

In fact, as early as the beginning of the 21st century, Wang Xin was keenly aware of this business opportunity. He constantly set foot in overseas markets and sold his socks to Romania, Poland, Chile and Russia. In 2019, he increased export efforts and opened a 120 square meter offline exhibition shop in Russia for external display and exchange.

At present, xiaobeihe has 3 enterprises directly exporting cotton socks. In 2021, the export volume of cotton socks of this town will reach 25 million yuan, and the sales volume of foreign trade enterprises through Zhejiang and other places will be close to 500 million yuan.

At the 2021 China (Dalian) International Garment and Textile Expo, China Textile Industry Federation and China Knitting Industry Association jointly awarded xiaobeihe Town, Liaoyang County, the title of "famous town of Chinese sock industry".

　　 Gather industry, strengthen chain, seek win-win situation

To the west of xiaobeihe Town, not far from the busy streets, the gray and white industrial plants in Northeast Asia light industry base are arranged in order, adding a lot of modern flavor to the ancient town. Entering Liaoyang demilong hosiery factory, nearly 100 intelligent hosiery looms are neatly arranged and running at the same time. As the coil turns up and down, a sock will "spit" out of the machine every 2 minutes. On the production line, Bai Yuzheng shuttles back and forth, checking the machine parameters from time to time, and installing color thread for knitting socks.

Bai Yu, 43, and her husband, Wang Hongze, are both from the Fengwan village of xiaobeihe town. Originally, their stockings factory was built in a few iron rooms temporarily built in the village. Hosiery machines, workers, semi-finished socks and exposed pipes were all crowded together in disorder.

Starting from 2019, xiaobeihe Town, together with Zhejiang centenary group, has jointly built northeast Asia light industry base through attracting investment, taking the first step of industrial agglomeration.

"It costs more than 2 million yuan to buy the factory, and the down payment can be made in installments. Although it's painful, it's worth it." Bai Yu said that the biggest advantage of moving into the base is that the plant is spacious, bright, clean and tidy, and there is room for enterprises to expand production capacity. She also has a conference room, which is specially used to display finished products for foreign businessmen to visit and negotiate.

Large industries need large carriers, and large carriers need strong supporting facilities. Li Qiufeng, director of Northeast Asia light industry base from Zhejiang Province, introduced public service areas with different functions in the base, and introduced spinning enterprises, printing and dyeing enterprises and air compression equipment to help sock enterprises enter the park to build, dye and discharge in a centralized way, reduce the cost of gas production and ensure the quality of gas supply.

In addition, network platforms such as collection and sales, online purchase and sales are being built in the industrial base. In the future, the industrial chain of enterprises in the park will be gathered to help enterprises reduce costs and improve quality and efficiency. "Our goal is to create the heart of xiaobeihe's socks industry, so that all kinds of production factors can be gathered together to better serve everyone." Li Qiufeng said.

At present, the Northeast Asia light industry base has attracted 61 cotton socks enterprises to settle in the park for centralized production. With the support of industrial resources in the park, xiaobeihe town has also emerged five finger socks, tide socks, crystal socks and other new products, actively exploring new markets.

"We are working with China Textile Construction Planning Institute and other institutions to formulate a long-term plan for xiaobeihe." Shen Cong said that at present, xiaobeihe socks industry cluster is still heating up. In the future, it will take Northeast Asia light industry base as the center, and continuously help upgrade the local advantageous industries.

As xiaobeihe socks industry entered a new stage of development, Wang Xin also began a new exploration. In April 2021, he sent a college student to a Russian showroom to familiarize him with business. After returning, Wang Xin went to Zhuji, Zhejiang Province for investigation. "What will the new generation of xiaobeihe socks industry look like? Let's give time to answer." He said.

(source: economic information)