Hometown Memory and Economy

Actually, I don't know what kind of title I should have, but when I was writing about the industrial upgrading of Huizhou in Huidong, Weibo, I was writing, and suddenly my thoughts exploded. The more I wrote, the more I wrote. I might as well write an article.

I like to observe the surrounding environment, people around me and things around me since I was a child, and I have a good memory. By comparing memories year after year, I can always wisely sum up the cause and effect of people and things at that time.

But after all, the human brain is not good at dealing with accurate things, and there will always be some deviations in memory, or even complete mistakes. The following records may not be so accurate.

Huidong is an agricultural county, just like most counties in China, with little difference. Since the 1980s, there has been a large-scale population outflow in Guangdong, and a considerable number of Huidong people have fled to Hong Kong. Because of its proximity to Hong Kong and its proximity to the sea, Huidong started smuggling with the help of relatives in Hong Kong. Later, when smuggling was serious, he personally came to Wan Li to supervise Huidong. This wave of smuggling has also made a group of adventurous Huidong people rich, which is the first wave of Huidong wealth. Now some rich people in the county, many of whom have made a fortune by smuggling, have also brought a lot of wealth to their families. This wealth is the original capital accumulation of Huidong Industry.

In the 1990s, several industrial towns began to appear in Huidong, and Daling Town, where I grew up, was one of them. At that time, Hong Kong businessmen and Taiwanese businessmen should invest here, mainly in the textile industry. I remember that in the textile industry, when I was young, I often heard my mother complain that she didn't learn to dress and turn around. Many female skilled workers earned a good income.

By about 2000, the textile industry seemed to have declined, and foreign businessmen also retreated a lot. An aunt who works in a textile factory gradually has to work less and less. At that time, when I was in junior high school, a large number of uniformed workers, toys and other large factories began to appear in the town, and plastic products such as plastic flowers and fake Christmas trees began to rise.

These factories have so many orders that they are even willing to recruit junior high school students who are idle at home during the winter and summer vacations to make goods. Some processes require a lot of manual work, such as putting rubber leaves on rubber branches. Many factories outsource these jobs to housewives. For a few years, the streets were full of young people making plastic flowers. For a year or two, making plastic flowers was a nightmare for me. The price of a single piece is very low, and there is no end to it, but I am poor.

Once I went back to school after the Spring Festival. On the train back to Nanjing, I heard from my classmates around me that students in many places had no summer job experience.

The wages of these toy plastics factories are not high, and many of them are repetitive piecework. In addition, large factories have strict discipline requirements, such as late deduction, leave deduction, no holiday, and serious overtime at night. Most local people don't want to work in such factories. A large number of migrant workers have entered Huidong, and the term "Yankee", which is full of discrimination and refers to all foreigners who speak Mandarin, has become popular on a large scale.

At the same time, the shoemaking industry began to flourish, and some small family workshops began to process the shoes of large enterprises, which in turn led to the development of a series of shoes. Most shoe factories in Huidong are small in scale, some are operated by one household, and some generally employ several workers. Many local people work in these family-style shoe factories, and their income is relatively high, without the strict discipline requirements of big factories.

Advertisements for shoemaker training and shoemaker recruitment began to be all over the street (but they all used the wrong word: fierce). Another aunt who works as a shoemaker in a shoe factory earns enough money to be envied by rural families.

By the time I was in high school, the toy plastics factory began to decline, and gradually there were fewer and fewer workers in uniform on the street, and almost no summer jobs were recruited. Up to now, the original factory has either closed down or retreated. Huidong's footwear industry reached its peak, building a silver-based trade city and holding a concert of "One Song".

It was also during this period that drug abuse, drug trafficking and drug making increased. With money, without guidance, it is easy to go astray.

After 2008, one shoe factory owner after another ran away and sighed that business was difficult everywhere. Workers' wages have also plummeted. From working overtime all night every day before, they have started work for less than ten months a year, and they don't have to go to work on weekends. In several shoe materials markets such as Yin Ji Trade City, there are fewer and fewer merchants and fewer people. There are few advertisements for shoe-pressing training in the streets. Motorcycles, tricycles and vans are all gone, and foreigners who speak Mandarin have gone.

At the same time of industrial decline, tourism and real estate began to prosper. When I graduated from high school in 2009, the whole class went to the seaside to play, and a large beach was still undeveloped. Now Vanke and Country Garden have developed a large number of seaside apartments and luxury houses, and hotels are row upon row. Due to the influx of tourists in a short period of time, the infrastructure has not kept up, and there are almost always traffic jams on weekends.

The towns around the county have declined, but the county has made rapid progress. More and more residents from other towns come to the county to buy real estate.

To sum up, Huidong has probably gone through several stages in these decades: agriculture->; Smuggling (capital accumulation)->; -> textile industry->; Foreign trade toy plastic industry-> family workshop, small shoe material and shoemaking industry-> industry; Tourism, real estate.

From the context of this industrial transformation, we can see that Huidong has experienced several industrial transformations, and there is not much correlation between industries, which also shows the failure of Huidong's industrial upgrading. Personally, the two failures of important industrial nodes are the main reasons for Huidong's current situation. First, the textile industry has not gradually upgraded its technology and deepened its industrial chain like other cities in the Pearl River Delta. Second, the family workshop shoe material industry failed to merge and form large enterprises and brands, and failed to realize technology introduction, technology innovation and brand casting. Unfortunately, foreign trade was weak due to the financial crisis.

For industry, growing up is a better form of regional economic development. Only large-scale industries can introduce the latest technology, realize independent technological innovation, expand brands, deepen industrial chains and conduct large-scale labor skills training. Due to its strict discipline, large-scale industries have improved the quality of the local population. Moreover, because of its large scale, it has the ability to challenge officials, which in turn can promote the improvement of the management level of local officials. Suzhou is the most typical city.

However, at the same time, it is difficult for large-scale industries to create rich opportunities for local residents. Take the petrochemical project as an example, it is difficult for local residents to have the technology and knowledge to participate in its complete industrial chain, let alone tens of millions of start-up funds. Generally, the start-up capital of a family-owned workshop industry is above100000 yuan. If you do it diligently, you can gradually accumulate capital in a better year.

Huidong's industrial changes, from big industries to family workshops, and now focus on tourism, industrial upgrading is a failure. Even now, there is still a great crisis in tourism. Tourism is an extremely decentralized industry, and it is difficult to effectively implement government policies and industry self-discipline. Once you are reduced to killing customers like Sanya, there is nothing you can do.

Huidong failed, but Huizhou's industrial upgrading succeeded. With petrochemical, electronic information and automobile as the pillars, the development speed of the Pearl River Delta for several consecutive years is either the first or the second. The two industrial parks, Daya Bay and Zhong Kai, are very similar to those in Singapore, and Suzhou has achieved rapid development by introducing such industrial parks in Singapore.

In college, I discussed it with my teacher in a class. For a region, the scientific and technological strength of core cities can better realize scientific and technological innovation. Jiangsu's overall scientific research strength is higher than that of Guangdong, and the strength of colleges and universities alone can crush it. Jiangsu has11211universities, while Guangdong has only four universities. At one time, my alma mater, Nanjing University, had more academicians of the two academies than the whole of Guangdong combined. However, the advantage of Guangdong is that there are two national core cities, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. Shenzhen once relied on Huawei, ZTE, BYD and other companies to occupy nearly half of the country's invention patents. Only core cities can open up new industries. Shenzhen's industrial breakthroughs in the Internet, intelligent hardware and automobiles have also promoted the industrial upgrading of neighboring cities Dongguan and Huizhou.

At the current speed of Shenzhen driving Huizhou's development, the Pearl River Delta should be able to add another Dongguan-level city in ten years.

Therefore, depending on whether a place has a future in economic development and whether its industrial upgrading is correct, there is actually a certain pattern.