Africa: Chinese Footwear Firm Sets Solid Foothold Into Africa

Guangzhou — Large Chinese ladies shoe manufacturing firm, Huajian Footwear, says it now wants to invest more into Africa where it hopes to create at least 100,000 job opportunities.

The factory management also says it expects to train 2,000 African citizens in China in the art and technology of making quality shoes -comparable anywhere around the globe.

The President of the Huajian Group of companies, Zhang Huarong said that when he met the journalists from 27 African countries who visited the factory located in the city of Dongguan, Guangdong. He said this was the plan for the next two decades, targeting middle-income countries, which are also pro-quality and trust in the development process and political stability, the safety of people and working tools.

Zhang said that already, this company had begun to invest in Ethiopia, where his factory was known as Huajian International, a light industry in a city that employs more than 6,000 staff. He said the factory pays (minimum) wages of between $75 and $95 while others receive up to $500 and $ 1,000 for management staff, a remarkable improvement on the existing government minimum wages in Ethiopia – which are pegged at between $15 and $20.

He said the factory gets up to 50 per cent of its resources from within Ethiopia, 20 per cent from China while the remaining 30 per cent is sourced from other African countries. Zhang said the company that produces more than 20 million pairs of shoes in two factories, and that it sells the bulk of its shoes to the United States and Europe where they have clients who give orders to a specific brand or celebrities.

“In both these industries we make ladies shoes that we do not sell in these countries of China and Ethiopia but we send everything to our markets in Europe where we have got many customers all the time,” he said.

He said the two factories’ total sales amount to $300 million, and generated a profit of five percent per annum. He said so far more than 150 Ethiopians had undergone training within the company, and that 50 others are getting further training, but the strategy is to ultimately recruit 1,000 to 2,000 more across Africa.

He said the African recruits were trained in China to get to know the required qualities and other issues relating to the manufacture of shoes – always aiming at achieving ‘excellence’ in their industries.

On its investments in Ethiopia, he said the factory went at the express invitation of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who encouraged the Chinese to invest in his country during his visit to China recently.

The Huajian firm itself was established in 1984 in the city of Nanchang in China, initially with 18 employees and three machines; in 1996, it moved to Dongguan and set up a company with 600 employees – where it is producing one million pairs of shoes to date.