Half the world’s computers, clothes and digital electronics are made in China, and more than three quarters of the childrens’ toys distributed around the planet come from its huge factories. Clothes, toys, furniture and shoes that used to be manufactured in workshops in Hackney now come from assembly lines in Chongqing, Shandong and Huangzou. So it’s no surprise that Hackney’s small businesses are starting to reach out to Chinese suppliers and share the benefits of low labour costs and high volume production.
Local regeneration expert and executive coach Chris Hadley has just returned from his third trip to China in three years. Earlier this week he briefed the Hackney Enterprise Network on his tour of Wuhan, Jinzhou, Yichang and Beijing, during which he visited commercial ports - including Han Kou, a major centre for the transport of coal and aggregates – as well as temples, and the monastic centre of Tai Chi culture at Wu Dang Shan, accompanied by inward investors and science and innovation specialist Julia Knight of the British Consulate in Shanghai.
“Even China’s smaller cities are now highly developed and entrepreneurial, with good road and river-based transport systems” he says. “New office buildings are going up everywhere. China now has a huge middle class. Life at every level is commercial, with traders and shops and small factories everywhere you go, and evidence that the peasants are beginning to prosper too. It’s an extremely enterprising society, and this gives rise to a huge contrast between the urban bustle, and the transport of raw materials and manufactured products through the countryside and along the rivers, and the scenic beauty of the mountains and rural areas.”
Chris Hadley travelled with the north London-based Meridian Society, which has devised an innovative way to teach Chinese using the Tian Di Ren (time, place, person) system based on the Chinese sentence structure. The society is also planning a summer school in a village outside Beijing, where visitors will teach local learners English in the mornings, and the be taught Chinese in the afternoon.
In Beijing Chris Hadley also met with Matthew Kelly, who helps local businesses trading with the Chinese capital on behalf of the Innovatory on Old Street. Mr Kelly links Hackney businesses with Chinese manufacturers, exporters, and freight forwarders, making introductions, assisting in negotiations, and ensuring that goods reach shops and businesses in the borough on time and in good shape.
“We’ve been opening doors for Hackney firms for the last two months, with interest mainly coming from the garment, print and construction trades,” Matthew Kelly reports. “We’ve also been helping to provide interpreters and translation, to source samples and prices, and to arrange shipments, helping small firms in Hackney avoid the many pitfalls which exist in international trade. There’s a growing appetite for goods from China in the borough.”
“The price and quality of the MP3 music players we’ve from Beijing beats anything we were able to source in Europe,” says Hackney Wick electrical wholesaler James Wilcox.
“We’ve been importing reclaimed building materials,” says Alan Davis of Redecor in Homerton. “Even with the transportation costs factored in, they cost only 25% of the going rate in Britain.”
On Tuesday night Michael Sinclair, the chair of the Stoke Newington Business Association, launched yet another service which will help Hackney businesses overcome the barriers to trade with China.
“ChinaOnecall is an interpreter in your pocket,” he says. “It provides a twenty four hour telephone link to Chinese staff who are fluent in English and Mandarin. The interpreters will speak over your phone to hotel staff, taxi drivers, business managers and ordinary people on the streets of Chinese cities.“
“There will be no need for a business to feel friendless and misunderstood in China again,” says Mr Sinclair. “One call to us and you’ll be on speaking terms with everyone around you.”
To contact the Meridian Society email mecs@meridiandao.co.uk To contact Matthew Kelly email Beijingoffice@theinnovatory.com For more information on ChinaOnecall visit www.chinaonecall.com
