A Tour of a Clothing Factory in Wuxi

Last week, I showed a picture of a building which we visited when in China and asked whether you have any idea what it is. I don’t know exactly what your answer is, but what I am going to tell you may surprise you a little bit.

Well, the building in the picture is not an office building, or a museum, or a hotel. It’s a clothing factory! I know it noway looks like a factory, but it really is. When I first saw the building, I couldn’t believe that either. To me, it’s somehow a weird taste of style.

The building is the main facility of China Heilan Group. One of my friends is working for the company whose main products are men’s suits and shirts, and as you can imagine a large part of their products have been exported to countries in Europe and, of course, U.S., if some are under their own brands.

It’s a little different than what you may think of a clothing factory in China, isn’t it? I have never visited any other factory before, so I can’t tell you whether they are the same or different (I admit I am a little surprised too), but I am sure a sweatshop doesn’t look anything close to this. In fact, Heilan is one of the largest manufactures of men’s clothes in China. In 2007, the company had a revenue of RMB 16 billion (about $2.3 billion), very impressive for a private company

One thing my friend mentioned is that as the financial crisis here in U.S. spread to other countries, Heilan, like many other clothing and toy companies in China, also feel the pain. My friend, who’s envloved in sales, said he had quite a few canceled orders recently. Actually, the financial crisis is quite a big topic in China. There’s a 30-minute program every evening on one of the channel of CCTV (China Central TV) and my friends were asking me about it, no matter where they live.

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