Inner Mongolia "King Deer" of the African business experience

China-Africa Chamber of Commerce Vice President, Chairman of Inner Mongolia Deer King Cashmere Co., Ltd. Zheng Haosheng said that with the steady development of China-Africa economic and trade relations, Africa has become an important node of the "Belt and Road" construction of the region to promote the two sides of the production capacity of the cooperation is the future of China-Africa economic and trade cooperation of the main line, which is also the domestic enterprises will be the export of their own advantageous production capacity, so that their own "go out" to the international community's best historical opportunity.

"An African proverb says that one hand cannot hold a gourd pot on its head. We also have a proverb in China: Brothers of one heart can break gold. In today's world, mankind is facing more and more global challenges, and it is more necessary than ever for China and Africa to share the same destiny and overcome the difficulties together." Zheng Haosheng, vice president of the China-Africa Civil Chamber of Commerce and chairman of Inner Mongolia Deer King Cashmere Co.

At the end of 2020, China and the AU signed the "Cooperation Plan between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the African Union on Jointly Promoting the Construction of the "Belt and Road"", which will effectively promote the construction of the "Belt and Road" initiative and the AU's "Agenda 2063" in depth, and provide China and Africa with a high-quality joint construction of the "Belt and Road". It will open a new chapter for China and Africa to build the Belt and Road together with high quality. Over the past 20 years, China-Africa trade has doubled 20-fold and direct investment stock has increased 100-fold. Even in 2020, with the epidemic raging globally, China's direct investment in Africa remains basically the same as in 2019. According to the Ministry of Commerce, by the end of 2019, about 3,400 Chinese enterprises had invested and prospered in Africa, 70 percent of which were private enterprises. It can be seen that Chinese private enterprises' direct investment in Africa is very strong.

Business is a language and trade is a culture. Chinese businessmen rely on the entrepreneurial spirit and the concept of cooperation under the inculcation of Chinese culture to communicate with the world and realize win-win situation. Zheng Haosheng told reporters that Inner Mongolia Deer King Cashmere Co., Ltd. has been investing in Madagascar, an African island country, for 24 years, and the story of "'Deer King" has been well practiced - the common construction of 'One Belt, One Road' is the pursuit of development, advocating a win-win situation, passing on hope."

Break the bottleneck "walk" into Africa

In fact, the deer king cashmere early began to invest in Africa. Deer king cashmere development has experienced the entrepreneurial stage of the "introduction", and later "go out". It is understood that the deer king cashmere is built in 1985, has been the introduction of Britain, Japan and other eight foreign-funded enterprises invested in the deer king company, to 1996, the company's output has reached 2 million pieces. "But at that time China did not join the WTO, cashmere products export quota system, the national cashmere products export quota are not enough for us to use. Insufficient quota became the bottleneck restricting the development of the company. For this reason, the company has sent people to foreign countries many times to investigate, research, and finally selected the target of the Republic of Madagascar in Africa. 1997 we established the first deer king cashmere overseas factory and sales center in Madagascar."

Zheng Haosheng said, "deer king" why choose to invest in Madagascar factory, mainly due to its unique natural environment: a suitable climate, temperature, humidity, fully in line with the conditions of cashmere knitting products, workshop heating and air conditioning, knitting is not easy to break the line and flying hair, product quality and stability. Second, suitable fresh water resources. Thirdly, the advantage of labor resources is obvious, and the cost of labor is much lower than the domestic. Fourthly, from the perspective of investment, Madagascar has a superior investment environment: special preferential treatment to enter the European market; preferential treatment to enter the U.S. market for textiles, handicrafts and other items; a number of regional economic co-members: SADC Southern African Economic Community, COMESA Southeast Cooperative Organization, COI Indian Ocean Alliance, and so on, which provide convenient conditions for attracting foreign investment. conditions.

"Moreover, Madagascar's political situation is relatively stable, the social security order is generally good, the people's morals are kind and simple, especially the deep friendship established between the Chinese and Malagasy people over a long period of time, which lays a solid foundation for our harmonious coexistence; the country's policy is more transparent, and legal documents such as the labor law, investment law, and other legal documents have been introduced successively."

Rooted in Africa lies in heart-to-heart communication

Madagascar lives in poverty, and the quality of labor force is very backward. Deer King Company in Madagascar factory in the early stage, the highest level of education of local employees is junior high school culture, many people only elementary school graduation level. Newly recruited workers have no concept of textile technology, everything has to be trained from scratch.

"China and African countries language barrier, different cultures, 'Deer King' overseas factories are bound to take the road of localization." Zheng Haosheng recalled that at the beginning of the construction of the factory, due to cultural differences, the local staff departure rate is quite high, almost every year to recruit, training, employment, to cycle back and forth several times. A corporate employee who went to Madagascar from China told Zheng Haosheng that he recorded each time he communicated with the local staff one by one, and through such a reserve of details to understand the local customs and habits and integrate into the local staff, not only to impart technology to them, but also to influence their perceptions.

"Now, the dispatch of technical production, quality, business and financial management personnel from the head office has been reduced from more than 150 in the early days to 50 now. Nowadays, most of the local employees' education level has also improved significantly, some of them can even communicate simply in Chinese, and some of them have joined the company's technical and management team. In these 24 years, we have trained a large number of local middle and high level business leaders, and also a large number of masters and doctors studying in France and the United States work in Deer King. Their opportunities and treatment, responsibility and ability have been equalized without any difference. Through the moderate localization of management personnel, Deer King Madagascar has established harmonious labor relations and public relations."

Zheng Haosheng has always believed that the friendship of nations lies in the affinity of people, and the affinity of people lies in the affinity of hearts. "Although Africa is backward, but the African people are very good, as long as you and his heart to heart, he will be selfless."

Zheng Haosheng said, "King Deer" in Madagascar factory for 24 years, each year for the local community to provide nearly 10,000 jobs, there has not been a dispute or accident. "Together with other textile industries, Deer King has created 1/3 of Madagascar's industrial output value, and endeavored to promote the development of the local economy. 

"Our friendship can be truly answered by our African employees." Zheng Haosheng told a story: some employees are two or three generations of the family work in the "Deer King" factory, most of the residents of the surrounding community are also employees of Deer King.In the early summer of 2019, Zheng Haosheng went to the company to inspect the work, when many African employees have to pull Zheng Haosheng to take a picture, although the language is not clear, Zheng Haosheng saw from their friendly and joyful smiles. friendly and joyful smiles on their love for the company.

 Staff translated the words of an African employee, the general meaning is: he is very proud to work in the deer king company, the company so that his family have food, clothing, children have school, people around him are envious of him, he hoped that the "deer king" order more, the factory has been run.

 Zheng Haosheng said he was very moved. "The globalization of enterprises is to go out of the country, do the difficult things that others do not want to do, do the good things that others can not see, so as to benefit the world, benefit the world. People's hearts are connected, and righteousness and profit are taken into account. Only with such a concept can Chinese private enterprises better take root in Africa and grow a 'big tree' of industries that are mutually beneficial to China and Africa."

Be a brother who shares the same destiny

At the beginning of the Spring Festival in 2020, the new crown pneumonia epidemic suddenly occurred in China. "At that time, Madagascar was still a peaceful place, we contacted with Madagascar urgently and purchased 250,000 valuable war protective masks to be shipped back to China as soon as possible to donate to the relevant departments. The Malagasy government was informed of the situation, instructed the customs and other relevant departments to make special arrangements, and immediately released. 250,000 masks through the thousands of mountains and finally arrived at the front line of the motherland to prevent the epidemic." Zheng Haosheng recalled. 

In May 2020, the global epidemic outbreak, Madagascar was not spared. King Deer decided to donate the renovated, remodeled and landscaped pharmaceutical factory to the Malagasy government free of charge, which is now the only pharmaceutical factory in Madagascar. The president of Madagascar highly appreciated the donation behavior of King Deer Company, and he praised the Chinese enterprise as a practitioner who is brave to enhance the traditional friendship between China and Africa, and made an outstanding contribution to the anti-epidemic work in Madagascar. 

Later on, Deer King Company also donated 50,000 masks for local medical institutions and more than 40 cubic meters of wood for cooking for local homeless people's rescue sites. Now, Deer King Company purchased 110,000 KN95 masks in China and sent them to Madagascar to help Madagascar fight against the epidemic in a small way.

 At the time of the epidemic, 95% of the local employees of "Deer King" signed the voluntary work demand for their own protection. "Our overseas employees and the company is a common fate of brothers, but also comrades in arms. 2020, more than 7,000 employees of the deer king company did not have a case of infection, successfully completed the production task in 2020. In today's world, mankind is facing more and more global challenges, China and Africa need more than ever to share the same fate and overcome the difficulties." Zheng Haosheng said.

 Facing the opportunity to give "a first move"

Africa is an important and indispensable part of the "Belt and Road" cooperation. At present, more than 40 African countries and the African Union Commission have signed the "Belt and Road" cooperation documents with China, accounting for about one-third of the total number of countries and international organizations that have signed such documents. On January 1 this year, the launch ceremony of the African Free Trade Area was officially launched online.

Analysts believe that the construction of the African Free Trade Area highlights the determination of African countries to promote economic transformation, and is expected to enhance the resilience of Africa's development. According to the World Bank and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and other institutions predicted that with the full implementation of the continent's free trade agreements, the total exports of the African region will increase by nearly 29% by 2035, of which intra-regional export growth of more than 81%. Africa as a whole will accelerate its industrialization process, enhance its global competitiveness and attractiveness, and better integrate into the world economy. 

Faced with China's opportunities in Africa's big market, Zheng Haosheng believes that China-Africa relations are now in the best period in history, with a good momentum for cooperation for mutual benefit and common development. "This is also very favorable for the domestic and international double cycle proposed by our country, making full use of the two domestic and international markets."

Zheng Haosheng said, as we all know, due to the sharp rise in domestic labor costs and other factors, China's textile industry and Southeast Asia, Africa and other emerging economies, compared to the cost of comparative advantage is gradually shrinking, like the deer king company such as the typical labor-intensive Chinese textile enterprises "go out" is the general trend. From the competitive development trend, in the future, China's textile needs also need to be imported from less developed countries abroad, the deer king company in this regard is the "first move". "China's investment in Africa's construction is mainly infrastructure construction, oil and mineral development, weaving industry, financial industry, construction industry, communication technology and other service industries. We are engaged in manufacturing processing in Africa, I believe that investment in the field of processing and manufacturing can improve the value-added of primary products for African countries, create employment opportunities, increase exports and foreign exchange earnings, expand taxes and fiscal revenues, as well as technology transfer, promote the diversification of the African economy and the process of industrialization, etc., and therefore investment in this field is highly welcomed by African countries." Africa is an old and "young" land. Of its total population of nearly 1.2 billion, 60% are under the age of 24. Youth means growth and unlimited space for imagination. 

Zheng Haosheng said that with the steady development of China-Africa economic and trade relations, Africa has become an important node region of the "Belt and Road" construction, and the promotion of production capacity cooperation between the two sides is the main line of China-Africa economic and trade cooperation in the future, which is also the domestic enterprises to export their advantageous production capacity, so that they "go out! "The best historical opportunity to go international. "Of course, 'going out' also needs to master certain skills, in addition to brand and technology, need to do more homework, and a high degree of integration with the local community." (Source: Article 1, page 8, June 3, 2021, China Business Times)