As the largest protective mask production base in East China and the only professional town for the safety and health protective equipment industry cluster in Anhui Province, the mask industry in Qingcao Town, Tongcheng City, has taken advantage of the momentum and grown rapidly in the fight against the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, and has grown rapidly in Tongcheng City. The southwest has formed a unique “microclimate”. With the rise of the mask industry in many places across the country, market competition has intensified, and the mask industry has returned to the “meager profit era.” By promoting transformation and upgrading, taking the road of branding, and sharing resources and teaming up for warmth through industrial platforms, the mask industry in Qingcao Town continues to grow and shows new vitality.
Seize market opportunities and industries take advantage of the trend
“Leveraging the advantages of industrial clusters to build a mask town in China” – walking into Qingcao Town, Tongcheng City, a golden signboard at the intersection of the main road in the town Particularly eye-catching, stores selling raw materials for mask production such as nose strips, ear straps, melt-blown fabrics, and non-woven fabrics are scattered along both sides of the road.
The mask industry is a traditional industry in Qingcao Town. During the epidemic prevention and control, Qingcao Town has quietly become a “famous mask town in China”, and the mask industry has become a veritable “golden sign” of Qingcao Town.
On the morning of April 27, in the production workshop of Anhui Shenyou Sanitary Materials Co., Ltd. located in Qingcao Town, workers were busy in front of the production equipment. At the entrance of the workshop, several workers were walking to a logistics vehicle. Shipping goods.
In the past two years, with the surge in mask orders, the company has continued to add equipment, transform and upgrade, and the production line has moved from the original semi-automation to automation and intelligence. The production capacity has continued to increase, the quality has continued to improve, and the company has been able to rapidly grow. In 2021, the company’s output value reached more than 25 million yuan, and the tax revenue was more than 600,000 yuan.
“We now have more than 50 workers and produce more than 500,000 masks of various types every day. In the past two years, we have invested a total of four to five million yuan in purchasing various production equipment to promote transformation and upgrading, and the production line has achieved It has automatic counting, automatic detection, and automatic packaging, and the product quality has also been widely recognized by the market.” Wang Kongshan, the person in charge of the company, said, “Now our products are mainly exported to Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States through cross-border e-commerce. We have hired a dedicated team to be responsible for the operation. Today In the morning, we had a batch of 400,000 masks shipped to Chile at Ningbo Port.”
The rapid growth of Shenyou Company is a microcosm of the development of the mask industry in Qingcao Town. Anhui Huiyou Protective Products Co., Ltd., also located in Qingcao Township, successfully developed medical protective masks through organizational technical research and obtained the first medical device production license for medical protective masks in Anhui Province, filling the gap in medical protective mask products in the province. ; Anhui Lekang Sanitary Materials Co., Ltd. and four other companies obtained production licenses for medical disposable flat protective masks… In the fight against the epidemic, “star” companies like Qingcao Town have emerged one after another.
The mask industry in Qingcao Town has a long history. Luo Yu, director of the Economic Development Office of Qingcao Town, said that Qingcao Town has been producing masks since the 1950s. From the initial manual sewing to the current automated and intelligent production, through continuous technological transformation, the industry has steadily improved. The products have also expanded from the original single labor protection mask to now covering various types of masks including labor protection, gauze, KN95, KF94, medical, etc.
In the past two years, the number of mask manufacturing enterprises and self-employed businesses in Qingcao Town has increased from more than 150 to more than 800 now, including 6 regulated enterprises; there are currently more than 1,500 employees, and 2,500 masks are produced every day. More than ten thousand. Before the outbreak of the new coronavirus, the raw materials for mask production in Qingcao Town were basically purchased from other places. Now a complete industrial chain has been formed. The mask industry has formed a unique “microclimate” in the southwest of Tongcheng City.
Currently, Qingcao Town is actively striving to become a “national mask industry cluster demonstration area” and “Anhui Province product quality improvement demonstration area”, striving to build a “Chinese Mask Town”.
Thinking determines the way out, and growth determines survival
In the past two years, as epidemic prevention and control has become normalized, masks have become a necessity to protect people’s health, and the mask industry has emerged in many places across the country. As mask production capacity increases and market competition intensifies, the mask industry has returned to the “meager profit era.”
From the perspective of Qingcao Town, the overall strength of various market operators is not strong enough, resulting in insufficient motivation to extend the industrial chain, develop new products, and improve quality. In addition, the increase in management affairs and higher professional requirements have also made the problem of talent shortage increasingly apparent.
“The market is changing rapidly, and only growth can survive.” In the market test, it has gradually become the consensus of all business entities in the town to continuously promote transformation and upgrading and take the road of branding.
Shenyou Company has continued to grow through transformation and upgrading. It has purchased 15 acres of industrial land in Qingcao Town at a price of 450,000 yuan/acre. The main body of the 15,000-square-meter factory has been completed and is about to enter the decoration stage. . As an independent land supplier, Shenyou Company will build a benchmark medical protective equipment industry in the new factory area.
In the past two years, more than 200 mask trademarks have been registered in Qingcao Town, and three companies have become “Anhui Province Trademark Brand Demonstration Enterprises.” In February this year, Qingcao Town was successfully selected as the “Professional Trademark Brand Base for Protective Products in Anhui Province”. Guided by the “brand development” strategy, Qingcao Town is planning to cultivate more than three influential mask brands, create a number of well-known brand trademarks, promote the in-depth integration of trademarks and industrial agglomeration, and boost the development of the real economy.
In the south of Qingcao Town, a farm covering an area of more than 200 acres��Tongcheng Qingcao Safety and Health Protective Products Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park is under construction. The industrial park was built by Anhui Anjian Protection Technology Co., Ltd. with an investment of 1 billion yuan. Construction started in August 2020 and will be completed and operational. Currently, talents and equipment are in place, and investment promotion work is also under intensive planning.
“The mask industry cluster here was formed earlier, but the scale of the enterprises was not large. In the past, raw materials were purchased from outside. If we wanted to expand the cluster, we lacked industrial land and industrial platforms. In 2016, we started planning to build a Industrial Park, but no company had the ability to take the lead at that time.” Li Xu, head of Anjian Company, said, “In the early days of the epidemic, raw material prices soared and the industrial chain was not sound, which caused us to miss many opportunities. When we have some funds accumulated Later, seven local companies jointly launched this industrial park project.”
After the industrial park is completed and reaches capacity, it is expected to achieve an annual output value of approximately 1 billion yuan and pay taxes of more than 30 million yuan, which will drive upstream and downstream supporting facilities There are about 100 and related service companies, directly employing about 1,000 people, and indirectly promoting employment of tens of thousands of people. The industrial park will also build a medical and health products testing center, a research and development center, an industry-university-research exchange center, etc.
With the joint promotion of Tongcheng City and Qingcao Town, Anjian Company and Wuhan Textile University reached a cooperation in the research and development and industrialization project of functional safety and health protection products, and established a doctoral workstation in Qingcao Town. Recruit the project leader as a guidance expert for the industrial park to jointly carry out project research and development and achievement transformation, and continuously improve product quality and added value.
Luo Yu believes that this industrial park can maximize resource sharing among local enterprises in terms of industrial platforms, industrial services, human resources, sales channels, etc., and promote Qingcao Town from a single mask production base to a large-scale The transformation of the health industry intelligent complex will also significantly enhance the market competitiveness of safety and health protection products in Qingcao Town and even Tongcheng City.
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