Cao County Party Secretary's Analysis: How to Change from "Instant Red" to "Long Term Red" Clothing | Cao County | County Party Secretary
In 2021, Caoxian became popular on the internet due to a short video of a demonic shouting call. This small town in southwestern Shandong is known as the "center of the universe" and "Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Cao" by netizens. Cao County's rise to fame is not accidental: it is the largest production base for performance costumes in the country, the largest Hanfu production base in the country, one of the three major board processing areas in the country, the largest rubber anti-aging agent production base in the country, the largest asparagus planting, processing, and export base in the country, and the world's largest medical glove production factory. How can Cao County make good use of the traffic dividend to develop characteristic industries after two years? How to carry out industrial transformation and upgrading?
Recently, the Qilu Evening News · Qilu Yidian "High quality Development Strong County Tour" large-scale integrated media coverage interview team visited Caoxian, Heze. Qilu Evening News, Qilu One Point Editor in Chief Liao Luchuan has a conversation with Zhao Fulong, Secretary of the Caoxian County Committee, to analyze how Caoxian can turn traffic into high-quality development for Caoxian County.
Featured industries+support from the real economy
Cao County's rise to fame is not accidental
Liao Luchuan: Cao County is the most populous county in Shandong Province. In 2021, after becoming popular, Cao County was hailed by netizens as the "center of the universe". What netizens refer to as "the center of the universe" is a kind of confidence, expectation, and goodwill towards the development of Caoxian. I would like to ask you to discuss the blueprint that Caoxian has planned for high-quality development, taking into account that time when it came out of the industry?
Zhao Fulong: In 2021, Caoxian became popular on the internet, which is a testament to the love of netizens for Caoxian. Why did you choose Cao County for that time out of the limelight? Although it was caused by a very ordinary event and later came to be known as the "center of the universe" and "Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Cao", ultimately it is because Cao County has a certain industrial foundation. For example, in the Hanfu industry, in 2020, the sales revenue of Caoxian Hanfu reached 1.9 billion yuan. After becoming popular, the sales revenue in 2021 reached 3 billion yuan. Last year's sales revenue approached 5 billion yuan, and this year's data is even more impressive. The sales revenue from January to May was around 2.5 billion yuan, and it is expected that this year's sales revenue will exceed 7 billion yuan.
The emergence of Cao County is not accidental. In addition to characteristic industries, there is also support from the real economy. Our private enterprises are quite active, and the market entities have reached 142000. What is this concept? The permanent population of Cao County is about 1.37 million people, with 47000 enterprises, which means that one market entity out of nine people and one enterprise out of about 30 people. Small and medium-sized enterprises are overwhelming. Of course, from another perspective, we can also see that the enterprises in Caoxian have mountains and few peaks.
Our first major industry is the processing of agricultural and sideline products, accounting for 80% of the 469 industrial enterprises above designated size, and the output value also accounts for 80%. This industry covers every corner of the county, making it a down-to-earth and prosperous industry for the people.
Now we are focusing on cultivating high-end chemical, biopharmaceutical, new energy and materials, and optoelectronic and electromechanical industries. The supporting role of these industries is not yet obvious, but they are also the only way to strengthen the county and achieve high-quality development. Next, on the one hand, we will focus on the existing industries that enrich the people, and on the other hand, attract a group of enterprises with high technological content, high output and efficiency. We will build a billion dollar agricultural and sideline product processing industry, as well as four billion dollar industries including high-end chemicals, new energy and materials, biomedicine, and optoelectronics. "One hundred billion level" and "four ten billion level" are both based on the industrial foundation of our county. They have neither unlimited growth nor intentional decline, and are development blueprints based on reality.
The commercial spirit ingrained in the bones of Caoxian people
Let e-commerce take root and sprout here
Liao Luchuan: Cao County has a registered residence population of more than 1.7 million and a permanent resident population of 1.37 million, so it is particularly important to enrich people's industries. The list shows that in the list of towns with rural characteristic industries exceeding 1 billion yuan in China in 2022, Cao County has four towns selected, namely Shaozhuang Town, Qingqianji Town, Daji Town, and Pulianji Town, with the number of selected towns ranking first among counties in the country. What is the mystery behind so many treasure towns?
Zhao Fulong: In terms of developing industries to enrich the people, after so many years of exploration, Cao County has indeed embarked on its own path: empowering characteristic industries through e-commerce and promoting rural revitalization. Previously, Cao County was also awarded the title of "Top 10 Counties in China for Promoting Rural Revitalization through E-commerce". In fact, the output value of Pulianji Town and Daji Town has already exceeded ten billion yuan. There are more than four towns in Cao County that have exceeded 1 billion yuan, for example, the board processing output value of Zhuangzhai Town has also reached 70 billion yuan.
Why can rural e-commerce thrive in Caoxian and reach the second largest cluster in the country? I think the root cause lies in the commercial spirit and indomitable spirit of Caoxian people. Although Caoxian has a large population and was relatively prosperous in the era of agricultural economy, the gap with coastal areas has been widening since the reform and opening up. At the beginning of the reform and opening up, there was a distinctive industry called film and fabric industry in Daji Town and other places. During leisure time, the villagers would draw some shadow cloth and carry it on their shoulders to sell in big cities. From 2008 to 2009, they began imitating and making performance costumes. At that time, when watching TV dramas, we were watching the plot, while they were watching costumes. Especially in 2009, Ren Qingsheng and his wife in Dinglou Village sold their first order on a computer with only 1G of memory using the Internet. With the sound of "ding dong", Caoxian's performance clothes have since been plugged into the wings of the Internet. With the help of the Internet economy, Caoxian has become the largest production base of performance clothes in China. Nowadays, they organize designers to watch the Spring Festival Gala every year to see what the fashion trends are this year.
In addition to performance costumes and Hanfu, Caoxian's e-commerce industry also has three clusters: wooden handicraft clusters, board processing clusters, and agricultural and sideline product processing clusters. According to Alibaba's standards, we have reached 21 Taobao towns and 176 Taobao villages.
Liao Luchuan: The costumes for performances in Caoxian can be said to have developed from scratch, from childhood to adulthood, which also reflects the pioneering spirit and market awareness of Caoxian people, which is highly respected.
From imitation to originality
Cultivate brands and expand industries effectively
Zhao Fulong: The biggest feature of our e-commerce industry is a complete chain, selling our own products. However, there is still some disorderly competition in the process of orderly development of the e-commerce industry. Taking the clothing industry as an example, there are over 6000 clothing industries and over 70000 e-commerce stores in the county, making homogeneous competition difficult to avoid.
In response to this situation, we first establish industry associations to strengthen industry self-discipline through these associations; The second is to establish a rapid rights protection center to protect originality. For example, in the field of Hanfu, which used to mainly focus on imitation, the originality rate has now exceeded 70%; The third is to do well in two aspects: quality and brand. For example, Hanfu is gradually moving towards high-end design, craftsmanship, and fabric. In terms of brands, we have several local brands that are doing well, but there is still a gap compared to top brands, so we are working hard to cultivate our own brands.
Caoxian Hanfu has a great influence in the industry and comes with its own traffic. We plan to use this traffic to create two regional brands, "Caoxian Hanfu, the capital of eShang" and "Caoxian Hanfu.". Then award the companies that have done well.
Liao Luchuan: Urban public brands actually represent a standard, reflecting the government's guidance on the e-commerce clothing industry, which helps regulate industry development and enhance the influence of quality brands.
In addition, we have learned that the clothing industry in Cao County is currently combining with excellent traditional Chinese culture to promote the concept of "Chinese clothing". I think the space is infinite. We believe that Caoxian can promote the creative transformation and innovative development of excellent traditional Chinese culture through the clothing industry, and do a good job in the "double creation" of excellent traditional culture.
Zhao Fulong: Our investment of 11.12 billion yuan in the "E-City · Caoxian Huafu Intelligent Creation City" project has been fully launched, and once completed, it will become the largest Huafu intelligent manufacturing base in the country. This also means that Caoxian has embarked on a new journey of transformation and upgrading of the Hanfu industry.
Why build this? One is to improve the quality of existing performance costumes and Hanfu, and gather elements together; The second is to expand the scope, from the concept of Hanfu to the concept of "Huafu", including Tang clothing, Zhongshan clothing, ethnic clothing, etc., and then to daily clothing, uniforms, cultural and tourism work clothes, etc., to integrate them into modern life.
Liao Luchuan: This extension can be understood as providing more application scenarios for performance costumes and Hanfu. We all know that in daily life, many people will follow the protagonist in dressing, which will also drive the development of some clothing industries. If the peripheral products of film and television dramas are developed, there is huge potential for development.
Zhao Fulong: Actually, our cooperation with film and television cities and dramas is quite deep. Most of the production bases for film and television performance costumes are in Caoxian, and we account for 70-80% of the national performance costumes.
Turn traffic into
The High Quality Development of Cao County
Liao Luchuan: After listening to you talk about so many innovative measures to promote the integration and development of the e-commerce industry and the clothing industry, although "the center of the universe" is a joke, we look forward to Cao County becoming the center of some popular or fashionable clothing in the future.
Zhao Fulong: Cao County has become "red" and driven industrial development. We need to consider how to transition from a "temporary red" to a "long-term red". Cultivating characteristic industries is not easy. What we hope for is not to become a flash in the pan, but to make the industry have long-term vitality. If the long-term prosperity continues, our employment will no longer be a problem. Employment is the livelihood of the people, so we need to consider how to maintain long-term prosperity at the strategic level of Cao County's development.
The first thing to turn "temporary popularity" into "long-term popularity" is to polish the city's business card, attract people to stay and start businesses in Caoxian, which is the key to urban development. It's not that netizens mock you as the "center of the universe" or "Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Cao", you are. In fact, we are just an inland county town; The second is to enhance the quality of civilization, which is the connotation of a city's attractiveness; The third is to strengthen the industry and improve the products, so that more people are willing to consume the products produced in Cao County; Fourthly, currently the overall industrial structure of Cao County is relatively low, with a large number of agricultural and sideline products as well as high energy consuming industries. Therefore, green, low-carbon, and high-quality development is a necessary path.
How to turn network traffic into capital traffic, talent retention, product sales, and high-quality development of Caoxian is a long way to go.
