Huiyang's luthiers hit the right notes

Almost everyone knows the world receives loads of manufactured goods and products like fireworks, fire crackers, Christmas-related goods, toys and gadgets from China. Not many know, however, that China is also the leading supplier of guitars, with one district in a city alone accounting for 25 percent of the global output.

Huiyang, a district in Huizhou, Guangdong province, in the Pearl River Delta, is home to more than 200 guitar manufacturers. Thanks to financial backing from investors from Taiwan province and South Korea, the luthiers have been supplying to all parts of the world over the past two decades, earning Huiyang the nickname of "the Capital of Guitars".

But, somehow, they have been unorganized all these years, and hence unable to make concerted efforts to further their lot.