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Chinese Farmers Enter International Market
"If our products can reach the ISO9002 (a high standard for product quality), it will become much easier for us to establish more branches in other countries," said Wang Hongren, director of an agricultural equipment factory situated in east China's Zhejiang Province.
Wang, a native farmer of Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, invested some 1.2 million yuan to set up a joint-venture in Vietnam in January 2000. Now, the annual profits of the joint venture total one million yuan.
Like thousands of his hometown fellows, Wang Hongren was following a plow and repairing shoes for many years before starting his own business and eyeing the global market.
In recent years, many local farmers, dubbed "muddy legs" in the Chinese language, have become shrewd merchants with excellent business acumen.
The Zhuguang Group, established by Taizhou farmer Li Yunqing in 1994, has become a multinational corporation with branches located in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Ecuador. The annual exports of the group total 20 million U.S. dollars.
"Directly establishing branches and enterprises in other countries will increase profits, obtain accurate market information, enhance brand loyalty as well as adapting Chinese companies to international standards," said Zeng Yuanfeng, farmer chairman of a local daily commodity firm.
Experts said that Zhejiang farmers' global business endeavors have become a new method to enlarge the local foreign trade volume.
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