In the Wadia Industrial Zone in Yangon, Myanmar, there are 5 brand-new factories on both sides of the road, where 3,600 local workers are working. This is Cathay Myanmar Garment Industrial Park, which opened at the end of last year. It is also one of the largest garment industrial parks in Myanmar.
Under the guidance of the “Belt and Road” construction, a large number of Chinese-funded garment companies have invested in Myanmar since 2014. “Currently, 60% of Myanmar’s garment companies are foreign-funded, and Chinese-funded companies account for 60% of foreign-funded companies.” Kai Kaine, secretary-general of the Myanmar Garment Manufacturing Association, said that on average, 80% of newly established garment companies every month are Chinese-funded.
Top-level design brings important development opportunities
“In fact, before 2004, Myanmar’s garment industry was relatively developed. However, due to sanctions imposed by Western countries, Myanmar’s garment industry was in a long-term slump. This situation did not change until 2014.” Executive Director of Myanmar China Textile and Apparel Association Vice Chairman Shi Kun said that in 2012, Myanmar promulgated the Foreign Investment Law and formulated investment rules for the garment industry to encourage the development of the foreign-invested garment industry. As the domestic and international situation in Myanmar changes, Chinese garment companies have also visited Myanmar to investigate and invest.
Yan Qiuhong is the general manager of Handa (Yangon) Garment Co., Ltd. Her factory was established in Yangon Province in June 2014 and expanded its production scale to 2 factories in a short period of time. Now it has more than 2,600 employees Burmese workers work here. She said that at first the company was interested in Myanmar’s relatively low labor costs and the preferential tax policies provided by the local government. After more than three years of development, the production capacity of the Myanmar factory has been greatly improved. “In the future, we will build a factory with 10,000 people to seize the opportunity in Myanmar.” The golden age of investing.”
Kaikaine believes that Myanmar has obvious demographic advantages in developing the garment manufacturing industry – among the nearly 53 million people, 65% are of working age, and half of them are female people favored by the garment manufacturing industry. Myanmar people value family and have strong learning and adaptability, making them suitable to become garment manufacturing workers. “The Myanmar government has also improved the labor capacity of the population by establishing relevant skills training centers.”
As a latecomer, Cathay Myanmar Garment Industrial Park has deeper investment considerations. Zhao Kai, head of the Industrial Park Management Committee, said that Myanmar has high-quality traditional clothing production technology and has accumulated certain experience in manufacturing high-end textile products. At the same time, Myanmar enjoys the EU Generalized System of Preferences and enjoys tax-free exports to Japan and other countries. In addition, The garment industry is also a priority development goal of the Myanmar government. “The Myanmar Industrial Park is an important expansion and supplement to Cathay Pacific’s existing domestic supply base. It is also Cathay Pacific’s model factory and ordering center. We use the park factory as the order center and continue to promote the common development of surrounding factories, thus forming a certain scale of agglomeration effect.”
Liang Xiaohui, chief researcher of the Social Responsibility Office of the China National Textile and Apparel Federation, believes that top-level designs such as the “Belt and Road” initiative and the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor have brought important development opportunities to China-Myanmar garment industry cooperation. For Myanmar, China is not only an investor in the country’s textile and apparel industry, an important source of raw materials and intermediate products, but also increasingly a consumer of the country’s textile and apparel products. China and Myanmar are connected by mountains and rivers, have stable bilateral relations, and have strong industrial complementarity. They have natural advantages in cooperating to develop the textile and apparel industry.
Workers see new hope here
According to preliminary statistics from the Economic and Commercial Office of the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar, there are currently more than 300 Chinese-funded companies investing in Myanmar’s textile and garment industry, employing nearly 300,000 local laborers. While expanding their business, Chinese-funded garment companies contribute a large amount of tax revenue to Myanmar and also contribute to improving the skills and quality of the local labor force.
“Letting employees and the company grow together is a tradition that Cathay Pacific has always upheld.” Zhao Kai said that since its establishment, the industrial park has established the concept of treating employees well, respecting the local traditional culture of Myanmar, helping workers improve efficiency, and truly Increase employee income locally; create a harmonious and friendly working environment so that workers can feel the warmth of family in every detail; train local managers in Myanmar and provide them with channels and space for advancement.
26-year-old Min Min Oo is a petite Burmese girl. If you hadn’t seen her in the factory, it would be difficult to imagine that she is managing a work team of 95 people. “I am very satisfied with my job. I feel that my colleagues in the factory are like a family. The master always cares about and teaches me, so I have the opportunity to be qualified for this job.”
The master mentioned by Min Minwu is Tang Qinghai, the director of Cathay Hambo Myanmar Clothing Co., Ltd. Tang Qinghai has been working in Myanmar for more than two years. In his opinion, young people in Myanmar are energetic and willing to learn technology. He formed friendships with local colleagues and became a family, many young Burmese workersI prefer to call him “Master” and “Dad”. Tang Qinghai also taught Myanmar apprentices professional skills and crisis management capabilities without reservation, starting from the basics. Burmese employees now account for 80% of the factory’s management. “Through humanized and institutionalized management, Burmese workers see hope for development. After all, we still have to hand over the business to Burmese young people.”
Only with new hope can there be new motivation. Brother Jiao, 28, has a deeper understanding of this. He has worked in many foreign-owned garment factories, but he has worked at Handa the longest and is now in charge of the factory’s fabric warehouse. He said that Chinese leaders were willing to listen to and accept their opinions and suggestions, which made him and his colleagues feel that this factory was trustworthy. More importantly, the factory continued to expand its production scale, giving him new hope. “Now I am working hard to learn Chinese, hoping to come in handy when the third factory opens,” Brother Jiao said with a smile.
Promote local industrialization and urbanization transformation
Last December, the 2017 Myanmar International Textile Exhibition, jointly sponsored by the China Chamber of Commerce for Textile Import and Export and the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Commerce, was held in Yangon. This was the first large-scale textile and apparel exhibition held in Myanmar in recent years, with 150 Chinese companies participating. , attracted more than 10,000 viewers in three days, and signed contracts with a total price of more than 50 million US dollars. U Do Min Aung, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce of Myanmar, believes that now is the best time to invest and trade in Myanmar. This exhibition showcases the future development prospects of the textile and apparel industry. He hopes that through the exhibition, China’s advanced technology, textiles and textile machinery can be introduced to Myanmar to promote the further development of the textile industries of the two countries.
Kaikaine has deep feelings about China’s industrial development path. She has visited Suzhou, Dalian and other places to witness the success of China’s industrial park development model. She also believes that this development model can absorb the production capacity of the entire value chain, reduce procurement and logistics costs, and effectively create jobs. She also hopes that Chinese-funded enterprises’ investment in the construction of garment industrial parks will bring new opportunities to Myanmar’s development.
“The construction of the garment industrial park has improved the overall technology and process level of Myanmar’s garment manufacturing industry, driving relevant international brands to place orders directly in Myanmar. Sufficient high-quality orders will in turn help Myanmar’s traditional garment factories to upgrade their technological processes, thus Directly promote the healthy development, transformation and upgrading of Myanmar’s garment manufacturing industry.” Zhao Kai said that with the increasing number of orders, they are planning to build the second phase of the industrial park.
Liang Xiaohui said that Chinese-funded textile and garment enterprises bring organizational and management experience in industrialized production, continue to cultivate management talents for the local area, exert technological spillover effects, and promote local industrialization and urbanization transformation.
The establishment of Chinese-funded enterprises will eventually drive the scale of Myanmar’s garment exports to increase year by year. Data provided by the Myanmar Garment Manufacturing Association shows that the average annual growth rate of Myanmar’s clothing product exports has exceeded 20% since 2014. In 2016, the total value of clothing products exported to major countries (regions) was approximately US$1.95 billion.
In the near future, Chinese-funded enterprises will build Myanmar’s first bonded warehouse project in Yangon Province. Shi Kun said that with the help of this platform, Myanmar’s textile and garment industry will establish the first local supply chain, and the fabrics and accessories produced in China will be stored in Myanmar in a bonded form, so that the Myanmar garment industry can conditionally upgrade the processing of raw materials to on-board shipping. Delivery mode, continuously increasing the added value of the garment industry, and promoting Myanmar’s garment exports to double their foreign exchange earnings. Improving quality and upgrading, Chinese enterprises support the development of Myanmar’s garment industry
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