NANNING, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) — As startling as it might appear, one in each 5 processed duck feathers worldwide right this moment comes from Qiaoxu, a once-obscure township in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region that has reworked into a worldwide hub for the feather and down trade, fueled by fast improvement and a thriving entrepreneurial spirit.
The feather and down trade in Qiaoxu dates again to the Nineteen Eighties, when duck feathers have been largely thought to be nugatory by locals, till astute businessmen from coastal areas noticed them as priceless uncooked supplies for garment manufacturing.
“My grandfather used to ride his bicycle with two baskets, collecting duck feathers door to door,” recalled Yu Ke, common supervisor of a neighborhood down and feather firm. At that point, Yu stated, feathers have been so cheap {that a} handful of candies might be traded for a big pile of them.
As extra individuals joined the commerce of shopping for and promoting duck feathers, Qiaoxu progressively turned a buying and selling hub for uncooked duck feathers by the early Nineteen Eighties.
When locals realized that true profitability lay within the down — the mushy layer beneath the feathers — they started exploring methods to separate it from the feathers, reasonably than merely gathering uncooked supplies, in line with Yu.
He famous that many household workshops sprang up throughout the township, with individuals gathering duck feathers by day and sorting them by evening, earlier than promoting them to garment producers in Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong provinces.
By the late Nineteen Nineties, Qiaoxu was dwelling to over 90 processing factories, changing into a key provider to main garment producers in China’s coastal areas.
Since 2000, many household workshops have reworked into trendy enterprises by incorporating superior washing and deep-processing gear, enabling the manufacturing of totally cleaned and disinfected merchandise.
Today, the feather and down trade is the spine of Qiaoxu’s economic system, with the city processing roughly 90,000 tonnes of such supplies yearly. This accounts for 28 % of China’s complete manufacturing and 18 % of the worldwide market.
The township is now dwelling to round 150 processing enterprises, using over 30,000 individuals. In 2023, the overall output worth of Qiaoxu’s feather and down trade reached almost 2.3 billion yuan (about 320 million U.S. {dollars}), with cross-border gross sales exceeding 1.1 billion yuan.
Qiaoxu has quickly expanded its feather and down trade into world markets. Around 40 % of the township’s washed feather and down uncooked supplies at the moment are imported from Southeast Asian international locations like Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, additional enhancing its world provide chain.
Local enterprises have additionally made important strides in exporting completed merchandise. For occasion, Yu’s firm was one of many pioneers, exporting down merchandise to Japan as early because the Nineteen Nineties.
“In early October, we exported 50,000 sets of down products to European and American countries, and we’re now working on completing new export orders,” stated Yu, including that the corporate’s duvets and down pillows are bought internationally.