Foreign buyers at the 18th China International Ceramic & Bathroom Fair in Foshan in October. The city plans to reinvent itself as a trade center of ceramics. [Provided to China Daily]

Industry chain keeps Foshan flag flying high

Kamran Cheema journeyed all the way from Washington to Foshan, a city in Guangdong province, hoping to find the perfect building materials for his soon-to-open restaurant.

Despite the exhausting long haul flight, the travel costs and shipping charges, Cheema still considers shopping in Foshan the best deal he can get.

"There are a lot of big malls exclusively for building materials in Foshan, and I can get plenty of options with reasonable prices in just one place. Back in the United States, for us to find all the detailed products we want, we have to travel from one boutique store to another," Cheema says, adding he has already found all that he needs during his short stay in Foshan.

Cheema is the kind of customer that Foshan is expecting to attract as the city moves up the supply chain, by reinventing itself as a major trade and exhibition harbor, rather than just a large production base for construction ceramics.

Foshan is undoubtedly one of major manufacturing centers in China that has helped the nation get the tag "the world's factory". Residents in Foshan often talk about the city's astonishing record of producing two rice cookers every second and 100 microwaves every minute.

But in the case of ceramics, a pillar industry in the city, there does seem to be much hype.

The city used to be China's largest production base for construction ceramics and had an output volume that accounted for 60 percent of China's total production. The increasing production capacity of construction ceramics in Foshan lowered the production costs, boosted Foshan's ceramic export business, but also dried up the city's power and brought in pollution.

In 2008, the local government decided to change tack and move low-end construction ceramic production out of the city. Instead of producing ceramics locally, the government decided to boost Foshan's ceramic industry by turning it into one of the biggest construction ceramic trade and exhibition centers in China.

The China Ceramics Industry Headquarters (CCIH), a Foshan-based zone built for ceramic producers, started operations in late 2008 and has since expanded from 210,000 square meters to 330,000 square meters by this October, all in a bid to get more ceramic companies to settle down in Foshan.

"What we are doing is to keep the decision-making sector of the ceramic companies in Foshan. It is the only way for us to upgrade the construction ceramic industry," says Zhang Chengwei, public relations manager of CCIH.

"We have sales, trade, research and development and after-sales service here in our zone, but no manufacturing. It is like keeping just the brain functions of the ceramic companies in Foshan," he says.

Zhang, who came to Foshan to work in 2005, says it was necessary for the government to move construction ceramic manufacture out of Foshan.

"Can you imagine the pollution here several years ago? We used to have acid rain in Foshan and plants could barely survive in the city," he says.

Statistics from the Foshan bureau of China Ceramic Industrial Association show that the number of local construction ceramic producers has dropped from more than 400 in peak time before 2007 to about 20 now.