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In the cold winter of the ninth, Xiaobeihe Town, Liaoyang City, Liaoning Province, the outside of the house dripped into ice, but the inside of the house was steaming. Rows of sock loom threads swirled, and bundles of threads flipped up and down with the needle, creating a pair of exquisite cotton socks in a few minutes. Jiao Qi, the head of the sock factory, was quite pleased with this production rhythm.
Jiaoqi, which was born and raised in Xiaobeihe, operates Liaoning Wood ColorEd Socks Industry Co., Ltd. In this town, there are more than 200 enterprises like him engaged in the production of cotton socks, with more than 20,000 employees and an annual output of 2.5 billion pairs of cotton socks.
Xiaobeihe Town, which has passed the "environmental protection pass", "gathering pass" and "foreign trade pass" three passes, not only won the honor of "China's famous socks town", but also with the production mode from "scattered" to "poly", the scale and popularity of the hosiery industry have been greatly improved, and the products are exported to South Korea, Japan, Russia, Chile, Canada and other countries.
Workers produce socks at the Fucheng Knitting Factory in Xiaobeihe Town on January 7, 2020. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Yang Qing
"Who would have thought that a few old sock machines would have made a big industry." Wang Xin, who was the first self-employed sock-knitting household in Xiaobeihe Town, could not help but sigh.
In the early days of reform and opening up, the light textile industry in Liaoyang City, which was born as the first piece of domestic production "really good" in New China, was developed, and many people used local yarn raw materials to knit socks in exchange for money in their free time. Wang Xin's "factory" started in an empty house of more than 20 square meters, the couple operated two buzzing sock looms, colorful threads and dust fluttered in the air, and every word had to be pulled in the throat.
Mentioning that the hosiery industry is "from scratch" and "from small to large", Lu Changhong, the deputy mayor of the town who has been in charge of industry in the town for 14 years, is full of pride. But to make the socks industry "from big to strong" and "from having to excellent", it is not easy.
Entering the second decade of the 21st century, domestic cotton socks have turned into oversupply. Xiaobeihe's production method of "village ignition and household smoke" has been difficult to adapt to the needs of the industry's white-hot competition. "If we want not to fall behind the times, we must start a new round of entrepreneurship in accordance with the requirements of supply-side structural reform." Lu Changhong said.
2 kilometers north from the town government, is the Yixing sewage treatment plant covering an area of more than 30 acres, where the "environmental protection pass" has been witnessed by the hosiery industry.
Cotton socks production is inseparable from printing and dyeing, the town built a sewage treatment plant in 2014, urging all sock factories to concentrate on the treatment of printing and dyeing sewage. The sewage that once left colorful marks on the black soil is intensively treated, disinfected and filtered here, and becomes clear and transparent. Lu Changhong said that in today's "green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains", green production is equivalent to keeping the bottom line of industrial survival.
To the west of the town, not far from the lively neighborhoods, the gray and white industrial factories are neatly arranged, adding a lot of modern atmosphere to the ancient town. Here, witness the small town socks industry through the "gathering pass".
The fast-growing Xiaobeihe socks industry used to be dominated by courtyard economy and workshop production. Jiaoqi's Liaoning Wood ColorEd Socks Co., Ltd. was originally located in Xiaobeihe Village. "The 1,500-square-meter factory building is half rough house and half color steel room." Jiao Qi said that the larger buyers walked to the mouth of the village and turned their heads to leave, "Don't look at it to know that the production conditions are not up to standard!" ”
Since 2019, Xiaobeihe Town has attracted Zhejiang 100 years old group to invest more than 700 million yuan to build a light industry base in Northeast Asia with a total area of 300,000 square meters. In the 45 modern factory buildings, public facilities such as water supply, power supply and heating are readily available, and a centralized procurement center, e-commerce center and financial platform are also set up to provide "one-stop" services for enterprises.
In 2021, Jiao Qi moved into the northeast Asian light industry base together with 60 hosiery factories. "The cost of use is higher than that of farmyards, but there are still many surprises." Jiao Qi said that after moving into the neat and spacious new factory, he "good horses with good saddles", spent 3 million yuan to buy new equipment for double knitting sock machines, and invited two college student designers to specially design and produce all kinds of tide socks, boat socks and stockings. The improvement of the level of enterprise technology attracts large partners to extend an olive branch. "Before New Year's Day, we reached a cooperation intention with Wal-Mart Supermarket, and these days the kangaroo brand came to us for processing." Jiao Qi said that this was unimaginable before!
To carry out production, it is necessary to broaden the sales channels. In the 1980s, in order to find a market for the cotton socks that had just started, the men of Xiaobeihe stuffed their satchels with socks, went south and north as "backpackers", and shouted the cheerful northeast shouting and selling loud... Nowadays, Xiaobeihe people not only built a sock art city at their doorstep and built a socks distribution center, but also went abroad to find a market.
Various socks photographed at The Little North River Socks Art City on January 7, 2020. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Yang Qing
In 2019, the Xiaobeihe Socks Industry Cluster went to Guangzhou to participate in the Spring and Autumn Canton Fair. Many people see business opportunities from the exhibition: "Foreign markets are large, in addition to tariffs, transportation and other costs, the gross profit of each pair of socks is equivalent to more than 2 times that of the domestic market." After this, the small cotton socks became popular and became a "tide of going abroad". In 2021, the direct export volume of cotton socks in the town is 25 million yuan, and the sales volume exported abroad through foreign traders in Zhejiang and other places is close to 500 million yuan.
Today, the 64-year-old Wang Xin has become an international "backpacker". In 2019, he went to Russia to open a 120-square-meter offline display store for external display and exchange. Just like the "first to eat crabs" to weave socks, he took the lead in exploring the "foreign trade pass".
In April last year, Wang Xin sent a college student to a display shop in Russia, taking him through the business. "What will the new generation of small North River hosiery people look like?" Time will tell the strivers that the future will be better. He said.
Planner: Wu Huanqing
Coordinator: Liu Zheng
Text reporters: Wang Bingkun, Wu Jiangmin
Editor: Liu Yangyang
Video reporter: Jiang Zhaochen