Design center plays crucial role in southern province

Born to a wealthy family, Qiu Zhihong could have led an easy life, but that was not for him.

He acquired a taste for business when he refused to accept money from his father and started to earn a living by selling toys on the streets in New Zealand.

Qiu is the eldest son of the founder of Daye Plastic and Crafts Industrial Co, or Daye, a leading toy manufacturer in the Chenghai district of Shantou, Guangdong province.

"When I was a child, my father, who ran a toy factory, always said he wanted to sell toys worldwide. I thought it was my duty to fulfill that dream for him," Qiu said.

He added that he endured great hardship during his time overseas to progress from being a street vendor to a small supplier for a local Kmart branch.

"The path to success is said to be paved with thorns. I think this was definitely the case for me, as I remember calling a Kmart manager at least 100 times just to be given the chance to meet her," he said.

His perseverance finally paid off. Some 16 years after he first contacted Kmart, Daye won Kmart's Best Supplier Award last year. Qiu has gradually taken over the family enterprise from his father — transforming it from a traditional manufacturer to a creative and cultural leader in the industry.

Yet Qiu is only part of the high-quality development in Chenghai, which is known as China's toy and gift capital, where six out of every 10 toys in the nation are produced.

With China charting a course for high-quality development, a modern socialist country in all respects", Chenghai has worked over the years to become a leader for this initiative in Guangdong.

The toy industry in Chenghai, long plagued by problems of weak independent brands and a lack of leading enterprises in original intellectual property, underwent a tough upgrading and transformation, with some companies finally achieving success after several decades.

Backed by public service institutions, cooperation between industry and universities, and protection of intellectual property rights, Chenghai now boasts 42,300 business entities and more than 125,000 employees. The annual output of the toy industry in the district exceeds 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion).

Data from the local bureau of commerce show that Chenghai's exports of toys and gifts last year grew by 33 percent year-on-year to 14 billion yuan.

Wang Chubin, the district's Party chief, said: "The toy industry in Chenghai is a major sector that serves as a pillar of the local economy. This industry is characterized by its large scale, high concentration, complete supply chain, and well-known brands, both domestically and internationally."

The increased industrial value and exports were mainly driven by intensified efforts in innovation, which eventually helped raise the added value of toy products, Wang said.

In the future, Chenghai will prioritize manufacturing and focus on promoting its toy production park, manufacturing intelligence, brand-building and diversified trade, Wang added.

Product upgrades

Along with the traditional toy industry, innovation has played an important role in driving high-quality development among various industries in Guangdong, a traditional economic powerhouse in southern China.

In Foshan, which lies southwest of Guangzhou, the provincial capital, more than 8,000 designers are based at an industrial design center. Their work involves upgrading products that include kitchen appliances, medical instruments and creative magic cubes, among numerous others.

Guangdong Industrial Design Center, launched in 2009 in the Shunde district of Foshan, has more than 285 research and design companies that have helped generate about 828.4 billion yuan in industrial design value.

Feng Jianing, chief operations officer at Guangdong Totin Science and Technology Industrial Development Co, which operates the center, said, "As innovative design has become one of the manufacturing industry's core competitive fields, we are committed to introducing high-end design resources and improving design innovation capabilities to form a complete industrial design service system."

The center has established closer cooperation with a total of 168 domestic and overseas higher education authorities to help introduce highly talented industrial designers, Feng added.

"Behind each product, there is a logical story of designers' creations being strongly based on market demand," she said.

While providing design services for the manufacturing industry, the center also integrates design, digital technology and supply chains to enhance the industry's core competitiveness, making industrial design a strong engine for promoting the sector's high-quality development, Feng said.

In addition to the intelligent home appliances and mechanical equipment industries, the center will expand its focus to new fields such as clothing and hardware to form a multidimensional and innovative service system in Foshan.

Pang Wangyu, deputy general manager of Foshan Innohause Network Technology Co, one of the companies at the center, said, "Industrial design is the most vibrant attraction of our products, which have gained popularity among global consumers."

The company, which focuses on the research and development of middle-to-high-end small kitchen appliances, achieved year-on-year export growth of 30 percent last year, despite a global slowdown in foreign trade.

"Our brand conveys life aesthetics through design, and builds consumer brand awareness, adapting to the consumption preferences of various markets," Pang said.

Industrial design and innovation have also significantly propelled the development of local manufacturing, research and development, and supply chains' quality control systems, Pang added.

"Guangdong Industrial Design Center is more like an aircraft carrier, helping to introduce talent from various areas of the industrial design field, and enabling us to better use these resources to build a competitive force throughout the entire industrial chain," Pang said.

The center has also introduced design platforms for strategic emerging industries such as medical devices and new energy vehicles.

Yu Xu, general manager of Qianju Medical Technology Co, said, "Innovative design integrates the entire industrial chain to transform the medical industry, from clinical trends and predicting demand, to product planning, technology research, supply chains and marketing services."

Based on Foshan's strong competitiveness in manufacturing, medical devices will soon have great market potential, Yu said.

As part of an action plan to develop industrial design in Foshan, local authorities have allocated more than 100 million yuan in special funding each year.

New success

Chenghai's thriving toy industry and Shunde's industrial design center chose high-quality development paths, with skilled artisans bringing dreams to life with their intricate designs. However, a different kind of ingenuity can be seen just a short distance away in the vibrant city of Guangzhou.

In April, one of the world's largest container ships, the MSC Irina, whose hull is nearly 400 meters long, started its maiden voyage from Nansha Port in Guangzhou. The vessel's presence in the deep-water port marked yet another success for high-quality development in Guangdong.

Nansha Container Port, which opened in 2004 and lies 70 kilometers south of Guangzhou, is the fastest growing port in the Pearl River Delta serving China's main manufacturing area.

A great deal of work was required to enable the port to accommodate huge vessels such as the MSC Irina.

Although the port is located close to manufacturers in the northwest of the Pearl River Delta, to berth in Nansha, ships must travel along a narrow 35-km channel. It took hundreds of thousands of workers several years to dredge the channel riverbed to a depth of more than 17 meters at a cost of over $1 billion.

Shi Dan, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Industrial Economics, said there are many aspects to the requirements for high-quality development.

"From a macroeconomic level, this type of development refers to stable economic growth, balanced regional and urban-rural development, and innovation-driven and green development that benefits everyone with increased and fairer distribution of the fruits of economic growth.

"From an industrial perspective, high-quality development refers to optimizing industrial layout and structure, constantly achieving transformation and upgrading, and significantly improving the efficiency of industries.

"In terms of business management, high-quality development includes first-class competitiveness, reliable and sustained innovation, influential brand-building and advanced quality management with concepts and methods."

Song Xiaoming, deputy general manager of Guangzhou Port Group, which owns and operates Nansha Port, said that to meet these requirements, intelligent management and advanced information processing methods were adopted for the newly built automated terminal, known as Nansha Port's fourth-phase project.

"No workers can be seen at this fully automated port, where colossal bridge cranes precisely locate and lift containers from huge freighters, moving this cargo to automated vehicles."

The terminal is the first of its kind built in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to incorporate Beidou navigation, 5G communications, artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles. Song said it is hoped that the terminal will form a specialized and large-scale cluster in Nansha to promote comprehensive collaboration among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao.

Nansha Port has developed 150 shipping routes with more than 100 countries and regions worldwide as a result of the efforts it has made, which were driven by high-quality development.

In the first three months of this year, the port's total import and export value reached 292.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year rise of 16.27 percent, customs figures show.

Chen Xi, deputy director of Nansha Customs, said that together with the Nansha Port authorities, a variety of policy measures were adopted to cut red tape, further helping customers and logistics companies.

"The highlights of the measures included convenient clearance and tax reduction and exemption," Chen said, adding that in April, the average clearance times for imports and exports in the Nansha Customs District were 28.49 hours and 0.89 hours, respectively.

"These are reductions of 65.8 percent and 92.1 percent, respectively, compared with 2017," Chen added.