Vibrant China Research Tour | Furniture industry "links" 500,000 jobs: How can a small town "turn wood into gold"?

Nankang District, Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, once a national-level poverty-stricken county, has now become the largest solid wood furniture manufacturing base in China. It consumes 40% of the imported rubber wood in the country and gathers more than 20,000 furniture manufacturing and supporting enterprises. In the first half of this year, the output value of Nankang's furniture industry cluster exceeded 140 billion yuan.

　　How did the once poverty-stricken counties achieve it? 

　　'Buying timber globally and selling furniture globally'? 

　　Ganzhou International Inland Port located in Nankang is Jiangxi's first inland open port. During this period, trains loaded with timber from more than 50 countries and regions around the world are entering Ganzhou Port in an orderly manner.

　　

CCTV News Correspondent, Zhang Qi:I am now at Ganzhou International Inland Port. This container is filled with pine wood transported from Russia by the China-Europe Railway Express a couple of days ago. There are a total of 48 containers, with nearly 2,500 cubic meters of wood. These woods will be transported to the nearby furniture factory for processing tonight.

　　

Nankang is a well-known 'hometown of carpenters'. After the reform and opening up, '100,000 carpenters went to Guangdong'. In the 1990s, people from Nankang returned to their hometown to start businesses with experience and funds. However, in the past decade or so, the local forest resources have been scarce, restricting the development of the industry. With the operation of Ganzhou Port, one-third of Nankang's timber demand has been met. Nowadays, relying on Ganzhou Port, Nankang furniture not only imports timber from more than 50 countries and regions, but also exports furniture to more than 100 countries and regions.

　　

Unimpeded supply of raw materials and sales channels is the foundation, and industrial upgrading requires more endogenous driving force. To encourage the diversified development of furniture enterprises and solve a series of problems such as low-end product homogenization and poor sales, Nankang District took the lead in establishing the Furniture Industry Promotion Bureau in the country, guiding enterprises to settle in standardized factories, and more importantly, helping enterprises establish a sense of original design.

　　

Chen Jue, Director of the Industrial Cluster Development Center of Nankang District, Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province:Compared with other links in production, enterprises invest very little in original design, and the added value of their products is relatively low.

　　

To fill the gap in design talents and enhance the added value of products, Nankang has made great efforts to cultivate design capabilities. It has introduced over 300 high-quality domestic and foreign design institutions, more than 1,000 designers, and established two national-level industrial furniture design centers. Good design has brought good sales.

　　

Wen Shitong, President of Jiangxi Fulong Huangguan Industrial Co., Ltd.:We have made ventilation holes all over the back of the sofa cushions. When pressed, the hot air inside will come out, ensuring that the back does not feel very hot or burning. In terms of sales, it maintains growth.

　　To encourage enterprises to hire designers and retain talents, Nankang has established a furniture industry intellectual property alliance, which collaborates with multiple departments to carry out market law enforcement and rights protection, crack down on plagiarism and imitation, protect design achievements, and has introduced relevant reward and subsidy policies.

　　

Chen Jue:We will provide a subsidy of 50% of the design fee. Up to now, the accumulated design subsidy funds have been disbursed over 22 million yuan, providing design services for more than 2,000 furniture enterprises.

　　Nowadays, personalized customization has become a core concern for consumers when purchasing furniture. As the largest solid wood furniture manufacturing base in the country, Nankang furniture is accelerating its digital transformation to accurately grasp market trends.

　　Citizen Zhong Kai's home has been under renovation recently. Her family wants solid wood furniture, while she prefers elegant French-style designs. After comparing multiple options, they placed an order at a personalized custom furniture store.

　　

Liu Changkai, General Manager of Ganzhou A Home Whole DecorationThis is the rendering made according to your requirements. Here, we have done solid wood wall panels with a French-style design.

　　Customer Zhong Kai:I want to move in in September because my child needs to go to school. How long will it take approximately?

　　Liu Changkai:We can deliver it from the factory to your home in as fast as 10 days, and the installation will take another two or three days.

　　

Such efficient personalized customization benefits from the enterprise's intelligent production system. Customers' design schemes are quickly converted into data and sent to the factory. Different from the traditional 'one order, one production' approach, this factory uses intelligent algorithms to centrally optimize the cutting of plates with similar colors and specifications from multiple orders according to requirements.

　　

Xiao Yong, Head of the Information Center at Home Furnishing Factory A for whole-house customization: Data of the same color will be merged together for centralized cutting, which maximizes the efficiency of the entire board utilization, with an efficiency improvement of 93%.

　　Sixteen machines in the workshop are operating efficiently. Raw materials are precisely cut, and panels of different specifications are automatically diverted on the conveyor belt, entering the circular assembly line. The high-speed edge banding machine can process 32 panels per minute, and the punched panels enter the intelligent sorting area.

　　

CCTV reporter Zhang Qi:The sorting robotic arm is quickly storing the processed wooden boards on the book shelves. One unit of these shelves can hold 480 component boards, which can be used to make 10 cabinets, enough for a family.

　　Today, over 6,000 enterprises in Nankang have successfully 'migrated to the cloud,' and their digital transformation is accelerating, which has become the 'core strength' for Nankang furniture to attract global customers.

　　Shake, a purchaser from Uzbekistan, told reporters that the stable quality, efficient delivery, and thoughtful after-sales service of Nankang furniture have made him a repeat customer. This time, he has ordered office furniture worth 100,000 US dollars again.

　　

Uzbekistan buyer Shak:When I inspected it myself, I found that the factory environment was clean and tidy, and their technology was top-notch worldwide.

　　The furniture enterprise that has won Shark's trust has an annual sales scale of over 800 million yuan. Originally focusing on the domestic market, they have received a large number of overseas orders in the past two years due to their good reputation. To seize market opportunities, the enterprise is planning to specially build a foreign trade production workshop.

　　

Xue Yejian, Manager of the Foreign Trade Department, Jiangxi Tuantuan Yuan Furniture Co., Ltd.:Furniture has a peak sales season from July to November, and the sales volume is expected to reach 1.6 million US dollars this year.

　　Today, Nankang in Jiangxi Province, once a poor county, is relying on its booming tens-of-billions-level furniture industry to extend its industrial chain and set up jobs precisely, driving employment and income growth for 500,000 people.

　　In the Nankang Furniture Industrial Park, Wang Xiaorong, a forklift operator, is shuttling between warehouses to transport materials. A few years ago, because his father was seriously ill and needed long-term treatment, Wang Xiaorong's family fell into difficulties. In 2017, Nankang introduced a policy to grant subsidies of 100,000 to 200,000 yuan to enterprises that employ a certain number of rural poor laborers. The furniture factory, which was in urgent need of transport workers, hired and trained Wang Xiaorong to become a forklift operator. Now, he has not only paid off his debts, but his daughter has also successfully graduated from university.

　　

Relying on a well-developed furniture industry chain, Nankang has set up precise positions for poor laborers:

• For those with skills, technical positions such as carpentry and carving are provided;
• Set up jobs such as shavings and packaging for ordinary laborers;
• For those with weak labor capabilities, positions such as security and cleaning are provided.

　　

Today, nearly 20,000 poor laborers have obtained a stable and continuous income through the furniture and supporting industries. Nankang has established furniture industry parks in 3 resettlement sites for relocated people, driving 2,766 laborers who have been lifted out of poverty through relocation to find employment.

　　As the scale of the furniture industry expands, more people have benefited from it. Li Zhongming, a truck driver, spotted the opportunity in e-commerce and partnered with friends to open a furniture online store, but the turnover in the first three months was only a few thousand yuan. After Nankang launched a series of initiatives such as free e-commerce skills training, supply chain docking, and office space support, Li Zhongming's online store business gradually improved.

　　

Li Zhongming, General Manager of Ganzhou Qiangjia Furniture Co., Ltd.:I have learned a lot of basic knowledge, including marketing and service. Now I can sell 10 to 20 million yuan a year.

　　Today, the output of solid wood furniture in Nankang accounts for more than 20% of the country's total. The entire industrial chain directly or indirectly drives employment for as many as 500,000 people, becoming a pillar industry that enriches the people.

　　Executive Producer 丨 Wang Yan, Sun Tengyue, Guo YichunProducer | Liang LijuanReporter | Zhang Qi, Jiangxi TV StationEdited by Zhang Hao and Zhang Bo