Village chalks up a profitable future with global focus

WUHAN－After dissolving gypsum powder in water and pouring it into a porous copper mold to solidify, Liu Xianping removes a handful of chalk.

Having made chalk for more than two decades, the 58-year-old is from Liuyuan village, dubbed "chalk village", in Yingcheng city of Central China's Hubei province.

The village has been producing chalk for over 70 years. In the past, the products were sold locally. However, in 2000, the chalk market became saturated and villagers needed to find new markets.

Realizing the difficulty his hometown was facing, Liu Xiaofeng, who used to work for an internet company in the southern city of Shenzhen, Guangdong province, chose to return home and start his own business.

He planned to integrate local resources and find a new sales channel. His solution was to sell chalk online, which unexpectedly brought overseas orders to the small village.

After making a webpage for his company to post its products, Liu Xiaofeng first received an order of 100,000 yuan ($15,000) from another province. Shortly after that, he received another order from France.

"At that time, it was Easter there, and the client wanted more than 300,000 pieces of egg-shaped chalk," he says, adding that the order made him overjoyed.

These orders were just a start. Soon afterward, orders from home and abroad poured in. Since then, chalk from Yingcheng city has gradually gained global fame and has been exported to more than 100 countries.

With years of innovation, Liuyuan village can now produce more than 100 kinds of chalk, which is widely used in education, entertainment and other fields. In 2020 alone, the village sold 5 million boxes of chalk.

"We can customize products for clients, and some specially designed chalk is sold at $1.5 a piece," says Li Junzai, manager of a local chalk company, whose products are mainly sold abroad.

"The growing chalk industry has made villagers happier and richer," says Liu Hantao, Party chief of the village, adding that more than 4,000 villagers work in this industry.

Visitors can see villagers busy placing and drying chalk on the roadside. "This job enables me to work on my doorstep, earning 3,000 to 5,000 yuan a month," says 53-year-old villager Tu Juhua.

Xinhua