the wall street journal published an article recently that said innovative small-sized companies in shenzhen are moving up the technology ladder, while global investors are having doubts about china's economic restructuring, the shenzhen special zone daily reported thursday.
it said robotic arms inside the factory of electronic maker shenzhen rapoo technology co. are making consumer drones, which are expected to deliver bigger " shenzhen, the city bordering hong kong, has helped power china's industrialization over the past 35 years by mass-producing cheap toys, clothing and household goods for the world," the article noted.
"if you know only one move well, can you really be unbeatable and not have to change for 10 years?" said xie haibo, rapoo's board secretary, a wiry 37-year-old who was skipping lunch one day last month to prepare to meet potential customers. "that’s the kind of problem we face, so we need to transform, transform, transform," he said, according to the article.
the article mentioned that small manufacturers across shenzhen are turning out 3-d printers, hoverboards and robots.
the central government wants technology upgrades to help pull the country through a painful transition from infrastructure investment to a consumer model.
"the city that deng xiaoping anointed in the late 1970s to lead china's market reforms is once more showing the way forward. its economy grew 8.9 percent last year, faster than the national expansion of 6.9 percent," the article noted, adding that high-tech and advanced manufacturing grew at almost double the national average.
the city is home to the world's biggest drone maker by revenue and hosts technology giants such as huawei and tencent.
benjamin joffe, a partner at a startup accelerator in shenzhen, was cited in the article as saying that factory lines that stay idle are expensive and are being used for new projects.
the article described hua-qiangbei as the city's trading district where thousands of stalls offer every conceivable electronic component. lee quenton, the operation manager of a 3-d printer startup, said he sells 3-d printers priced from around 3,000 yuan to 800,000 yuan each, mostly to chinese factories. lee's company sold around 300 printers last year, 50 percent more than in 2014, according to the article.
"china's demand for camera-equipped drones is forecast to hit 3 million shipments in 2019," the article noted, and it said rapoo plans to raise around 1.1 billion yuan from private investors to fund further expansion, after the company was selected by the government as one of 46 “demonstration" projects across the country last year for its use of robots.
"no matter how difficult things get, i believe there will still be companies that survive and are even better off," said xie, who was cited in the article.
