80% of global fishing gear comes from Shandong China, and half of them come from Weihai. What is working behind the scenes of Weihai forming the “Capital of Fishing Tackles in China”. It just so happens that Zhou Changfan, a business journalist, is from Weihai, Shandong. His father was formerly the deputy general manager of the largest fishing gear company in the area. What did they do in the face of a counterattack by the fishing gear industry in 2020? This article from the micro-channel public number: sloth bear PHYSICAL (ID: lanxiongsports) , of: circumferential Chang Fan, the subject map from Visual China

Going home for the Chinese New Year this year, I asked my father if the fishing rod export situation of Weihai was affected. After all, in 2020, the whole world will be affected by the epidemic. I originally thought that his company might be under great pressure because they only do export trade.

But what I didn’t expect was that orders in the company’s largest market, the US market, were not affected at all. On the contrary, orders surged in the off-season. In response to the call to celebrate the Chinese New Year on the spot, some workers worked overtime after only three days off during the Chinese New Year.

My father told me the logic: The new crown epidemic in the United States is serious, but the government sends money, and consumers get the relief money and go out to play, but also pay attention to maintaining social distance. As a result, outdoor sports products such as fishing rods and surfboards are sold, so they have to increase orders from Chinese suppliers.

My father has been working in the fishing gear industry since 1985, and he was in Weihai’s largest fishing rod manufacturing and exporting company, Global Fishing Tackle. Before he retired, he served as the deputy general manager, so he has a good understanding of this industry.

My hometown, Weihai, was awarded the title of “China Fishing Rod City” by the China Culture, Education and Sporting Goods Association in 2018. As early as 2011, Weihai won the title of “China’s Fishing Tackle Capital”.

If you only look at these two titles, you may not have a vivid understanding. But looking at a set of data, you can understand why Weihai is the king of fishing tackle in the world, especially the hegemon of fishing rods.

According to statistics, 80% of global fishing gear comes from China, and half of them come from Weihai. In fact, in the field of fishing rods, basically all fishing rods on the global market come from Weihai. In other words, Weihai has already dominated the world. Only Japan and the United States remain, and there are still a few high-tech high-end fishing rods.

Weihai has formed a huge fishing tackle industry, so fishing tackle and fishing rod city deserve it. So, how did Weihai form such a pillar industry? Is there any experience to learn from other cities in developing the sporting goods industry?

In general, behind this, there are certain innate advantages, some external environmental conditions, and the unremitting struggle of the fishing gear people themselves. Of course, there are some unexpected gains in the development of the industry.

My father is a historical witness of the development of Weihai fishing gear. As a reporter, I interviewed him by the way and found that this is also a “big river” type of industrial development history.

China’s first fiberglass fishing rod was born in Weihai, which has some origins. In the early 1980s, Mr. Liu, an old foreign trader from Shandong Light Industrial Products Import and Export Corporation, brought back a fishing rod from an Austrian merchant from the Canton Fair. The foreigner wanted to find out if there is a manufacturer in China.

The background of the era at this time is that the production of fishing rods in the United States has undergone the first industrial transfer in the 1950s and transferred to Japan, and European fishing rods are also imported from Japan. The cost of Japanese fishing tackle is relatively low, and the product quality is good, and precise, high, medium and low grades can be satisfied.

At this time, China was blank in fiberglass fishing rods. Before 1984, I hadn’t heard of any factory that could manufacture them. At this time, the Chinese people used to make their own bamboo poles to go to the beach or lake to fish. There were no modern and industrialized fishing gear. This teacher Liu looked all the way along the Jiaodong Peninsula, from Qingdao to Yantai, and finally to Weihai. He took this fishing rod and asked if we Chinese could make it by ourselves.

Ms. Liu found Weihai No. 1 Plastic Factory. After nearly a year, he really made a rough imitation.

Why do you have to make a fishing rod? At that time, fishing rods were actually very profitable, with extremely high profit margins, and Japanese products were in short supply. If China can produce it by itself, a fishing rod with a cost of 5 yuan can be sold for more than 10 yuan, and it can be exported to the country口Exchange. Do the math, if we make it ourselves, plus exchange rate factors, the price will be very competitive.

Why can a plastic factory in Weihai, a small place, be able to make it and become the city of fishing rods after more than 30 years? This is about the light industry foundation of Weihai. At that time, Weihai was able to make many kinds of plastic products, including plastic floors, instant coffee cups, artificial leather, etc., which could be supplied to the whole country. For this reason, the administrative level of Weihai Plastics Corporation, a state-owned enterprise, is tied to that of the Second Light Industry Bureau, rather than a subordinate relationship like Qingdao and Yantai. This inherent advantage has planted the seeds of an industry.

The first fishing rod imitated can only be regarded as the prototype of the product. However, on the axis of history, people did not know that Weihai was about to catch up with the third transfer of the fishing tackle industry. The second transfer was from Japan to South Korea, where labor prices are low. This time, fishing tackle manufacturing has been quietly transferred from Japan and South Korea to China.

Shandong Province, with a land area of ​​1.5 the size of South Korea, is surrounded on three sides by the sea like South Korea. At that time, South Korea’s economy was not much more developed than Shandong. However, since the beginning of energy production, Weihai’s fishing tackle, especially the fishing rod industry, has begun the road to dominate the world. This road starts with seizing the opportunity to replace South Korea.

At the time of the industrial transfer, Japan happened to be looking for foundries. After Mr. Liu showed the rough finished product in Weihai to a Japanese company, the Japanese company felt that it could be found in Weihai. Mr. Liu invited technical experts from the Japanese fishing rod industry to give guidance. Some of the craftsmanship, such as how to paint fishing rods, may seem or think very simple, but in fact, the craftsmanship will not be as fine as Japan and South Korea.

After Weihai started to produce fiberglass fishing rods with energy, in 1985, the Weihai Plastic Factory No. 1 spun off the fishing rod production separately and established Weihai Plastic Fishing Tackle Factory, both of which are managed by the Plastics Company. Later, the Plastic Fishing Tackle Factory became the Global Fishing Tackle Company. In Weihai and the fishing rod industry, almost no one knows it. Of course, this is something.

My father transferred from the army in 1985 and worked in a plastic fishing tackle factory. Until now, he was re-employed after he retired. He has personally experienced the history of Chinese fishing rods from scratch. He went from workshop director to production chief, then to research institute and then responsible for sales, and finally served as deputy general manager of the company.< /strong>Father’s generation of fishing tackle men is the epitome of China’s fishing rod industry. In the late 1980s, when the then prime minister was investigating Weihai, his father also introduced the production technology to the premier on behalf of the company and reported work. This is also the beginning of the industry’s peak.

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Japan has always mastered the most advanced technology in the fishing gear industry and has acted as a supplier to the United States. In my childhood memory, my father went abroad for business trips to Japan and South Korea. It was not until I later went to university that my father had the opportunity to go to the American fishing gear exhibition. China’s fishing rods are gradually entering Japan and South Korea from OEMs to brands, and then entering the European and American markets.

Before there was Japan, and then there was China. From 1995 to 2000, Korean fishing rods, which had the same market position as China, were finally squeezed out of the international market. The sharp rise in labor costs in Korea in the 1990s was the main reason. History has favored the fishing rod industry in Weihai, and our demographic dividend was later eaten for nearly 20 years. Of course, it is not only the dividends of the times that have created China’s competitive advantage over South Korea. In fact, Weihai Fishing Tacklers have also worked hard to improve their technical content, trying to target the last 1% of high-end fishing rod supplies in the international market. This is also doomed to the fate of Korean manufacturers to be harvested by China and Japan.

By the mid-1990s, the most popular, profitable, and most expensive fishing rod on the international market was made of carbon fiber. Carbon fiber is a material with high strength, light weight, and good toughness. China cannot produce it by itself. Only a few countries such as the United States, Japan, Russia, and Germany can produce it. This new material can also be used in many other products, such as aircraft wings, bridges, oil storage tanks, high-speed rail train heads, F1 racing cars, wind turbine blades, etc. It can be used in the military industry, and Europe and the United States are more sensitive.

According to the regulations of “Batumi”, Japanese fishing gear manufacturers can only designate the carbon fiber used in Chinese OEMs, record the quantity, and make it the same as the OEM manufacturing of luxury brands in China, and count the incoming materials and the quantity of finished products. , There can be no loss. The organization “Batumi” also appeared in the TV series “Dajiang Dahe”. It is the “Paris Coordination Committee”. It is an organization that imposes embargoes and trade restrictions on socialist countries. Restricted the export of advanced large-scale chemical equipment.

Weihai’s fishing rod industry can manufacture carbon fiber fishing rods for Japan by importing carbon fiber cloth from Japan. Later, Guangwei fishing gear imported carbon fiber silk and spun it into carbon fiber cloth by itself, but the step from silk to cloth is not difficult. As for how to make carbon fiber yarn, a few countries such as Japan have always kept the secret.

Chen Guangwei of Guangwei Fishing Tackle is determined to break through this technical problem, hoping to eventually realize self-production in China from the source of carbon fiber yarn. In the same period in China, companies in other industries tried to break through the technical difficulties of this new material, such as Jilin Chemical, which serves military industry.

It took more than 10 years for Chen Guangwei to conquer carbonWith regard to the fiber problem, one of his son Chen Liang studied in Japan and was busy with carbon fiber fishing rods. Now he took over the Guangwei Group and was listed on the Forbes China Rich List last year. In order to conduct carbon fiber research, Guangwei Fishing Tackle almost went bankrupt at the most difficult time. Chen Guangwei put all his wealth on, and mortgaged the plant and equipment. In the end, he won the Weihai City Government, the PLA General Armament Department, and the National Science and Technology Commission, and invested part of it. Capital holdings to support.

In the end, Guangwei made carbon fiber yarn. Although it could not be mass-produced, it was the first to break through this new material problem in China before Jilin Chemical Industry. Now, it can be mass-produced for use in many industries other than fishing gear, such as the blades of wind turbines (there is a wind turbine on the east coast of Weihai), as well as the most advanced J-20 fighter jets used in our army. Unmanned helicopter.

As a result, Guangwei Fishing Tackle has added a new material business, which is getting bigger and bigger than the previous fishing gear business. Now, Guangwei Group is already a listed company, and Guangwei Group’s carbon fiber can also be directly used by the domestic fishing gear industry, while competing with Japan and other companies in a certain level of carbon fiber material business. In China, only a few companies in the single digits can produce this material.

The new material manufacturing hatched by the fishing rod industry is both accidental and reasonable. If the fishing rod industry in Weihai is enlarged and viewed within the entire Chinese system, it will take the path of OEM-brand-self-developed technological breakthroughs. Many sports goods and light industrial products in China have counterattacked internationally in this way and become world hegemons, such as sports shoes and glass on Apple mobile phones.

Weihai’s fishing gear industry started with fishing rods, followed by surrounding parts and accessories. Now there is also an annual fishing tackle fair, forming a whole industry of production, trade, exhibition and so on. Today, Weihai has more than 1,000 fishing gear manufacturers and supporting enterprises. , The annual output value exceeds 10 billion yuan. And then, Weihai will continue to combine the tourism industry to create sea fishing and recreational fishing projects, and continue to expand related industries. Keep labels like fishing and fishing tackle firmly.

There are a large number of fishing enthusiasts in China. On the Internet, it has always been said that the home of middle-aged men is not only bracelets, health preservation, and tea, but also fishing. Human life brings some passion and hope. In addition to golf, fishing is not only a means for the boss to socialize, but also a way for the common people and brothers to relax and communicate together. Fishing gear is an industry that can bring health and happiness to people. In the future, it can also continue to be upgraded with some modern new technologies. For example, I have seen in the video that some players use drones to play sea fishing.

From a certain angle