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Helping businesses grow through adversity

By Liang Qiwen (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-24 07:39

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Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Guangdong, with most of them private businesses, are trying their best to battle the global economic crisis.

From January to September, 7,148 SMEs in Guangdong shut down because of the economic crisis, the provincial SMEs bureau said.

Yet many household goods firms in Guangdong are still very confident of the future.

"Our company is running well," said Jian Juefei, the general manager of Foshan Jian's Household Electrical Alliances Manufactory.

This year, sales volume and revenues of the company are both better than last year. Jian termed it "growth in adversity".

Currently, Jian's purple clayware has a 60 percent domestic market share.

As one of the most professional clayware makers, Jian's has been making it for more than 20 years. Since 2004, the company has maintained a leading role in the industry.

"Since we decided to produce purple clayware in 1986, we did not ever lose our focus," Jian said.

He said a clear mission making one thing is a key to success.

The central government is now encouraging domestic enterprises to shift their emphasis from the international market to domestic sales as a way to hedge against the global economic crisis.

Jian's concentrated its business on the domestic market all along, with 80 percent of the company's products are sold in China.

To survive the economic crisis, enterprises must be very strong in their internal management, the general manager said.

"Enterprises shouldn't blame the external environment, but they must seek solutions by themselves," he said.

He is very confident of the domestic market of daily commodities, as he believes people need them no matter how bad the economy is.

The only way to keep growing is always innovating and upgrading products, he said.

Meanwhile, the provincial government has done all they can to minimize the effects of financial crisis on SMEs.

The government plans to spend 1 billion yuan every year until 2012 to help modern service providers and advanced manufacturing enterprises sustain development.

The provincial government is also taking measures to help SMEs improve their innovation capacity.

Each year, the provincial government will appropriate at least 200 million yuan to help SMEs in technology development.

The government will also establish a special fund to support import and export companies that have significant potential to keep growing in the future.

Each year, the provincial government will spend at least 700 million yuan supporting the less developed areas including the western and eastern Guangdong to develop economy.