The pros and cons of manufacturing in China are many - one of the biggest plusses is that costs of manufacture are still relatively "acceptable".

In the many years that I have been involved with going to the Orient, living as well as working there, I have heard on many occasions, people speaking of China becoming a world economic power. I have to say here and now, that this is not a case of becoming, indeed it already is!

For those of you reading this article who have had the pleasure of travelling there, you will have seen the steady and at times accelerated growth, particularly in the Guangdong Province. This is not just in the development of road and transport systems but the by the massive influx of everyday names like Peugeot, BMW and Mercedes.

I first went to China and Taiwan in 1994 for a cash and carry and distribution company when 80% of the Taiwanese owned companies were in their infancy of moving to the mainland. Since then, almost every major brand and factory has now not only been set up but a good number of them have either had to move to new bigger premises or opened a second and third facility.

Doing business in China has never been easy. To begin with, the language and character alphabet are so alien to what we are used to. Couple this with the fact that in Chinese the word ‘no’ as we know it, doesn’t really exist. There is little negativity as such in their language so you will almost always find the Chinese a very positive race of people agreeing to many things – just maybe taking a long time to ‘deliver’!

When I first had to spend many weeks in the Orient back in 2001, I was there for six weeks. It was somewhat of a shock to the system. My apartment was for the most part, acceptable but it also had a healthy tribe of cockroaches and other creatures including small lizards. The latter I didn’t mind because they ate the cockroaches but for me the worst were the mosquitoes. They were incessant and unrelenting and many a time I resembled a large pink pincushion. In all the time I was there I’d never had any injections and I guess over time one builds up a natural antibody to anything that the pesky critters carried around with them. Thank goodness therefore that I never contracted malaria or anything else of a similar ilk. It has to be said that anyone wishing to visit the Orient should always seek medical advice first.

During my first main stay in China, it became very apparent that, even only six years ago, there were very few companies actually sending employees on extended visits to China. It soon became very clear that the benefits of these visits far outweighed the costs of flights, accommodation etc. Having someone on the ground proved invaluable, as one was able to make on-the-spot, informed, decisions and not have to wait for emails or faxes etc. This is especially important, as there is a time difference to contend with.

The only problem any company faced was when that person returned home. That’s when for us Europeans the time difference can be a nuisance. I lived in Australia at the time and I was lucky not to have such a big time difference to worry about. What was worrying was that it seemed to be that as soon as a person left the factory premises, language went out of the window as did time plans and production schedules etc because nobody was there to drive it.

So from a company point of view, it is very much apparent and fast becoming a major requirement to have at least one person on the ground running the operation.

To highlight a point in mind about things being easier when there, I will always remember a Chinese sales assistant in one of the bigger factories arguing with me in email before I’d arrived about the costs of sampling and samples etc to a Gold Seal Standard. To be fair, he was quite new - but it seemed that all the training and induction he had been given remained in the classroom! It took some 11 emails, phone calls and several days to get to the bottom of his problem as to WHY a Gold Seal Sample couldn’t be produced. His reason? The gold paint would have been too costly to buy!!! One can imagine my expression at the time and the blue air in my office!

Needless to say there were many similar occasions I had to deal with over the ensuing five years working for three different companies in China.

I will always consider myself very lucky to have ‘benefited’ from the experience of working in the Orient. Having finished there now for the foreseeable future (never say never!) I did enjoy in part the work and area. It can be and was at times a very lonely existence. It takes planning and organisation in order to simply carry on or exist on a daily basis. You cannot simply pop down to the local shop for a pint of milk… so even the simplest of items that we very much take for granted here has to be thought through and planned.

In the last four years there, I lived in two main areas. Dongsheng and PanYu. Dongsheng had the convenience of being near Zhongshan a major and bustling city with PanYu being the sleepier backwater but nonetheless closer to the ‘county town’ of Guangzhou. Both enjoyed good links with Hong Kong and in later years, with ferries becoming more and more frequent, they are much easier and more accessible. The pitfalls of having your own representative in China therefore are:

• Cost, in terms of both living expenses and suitable remuneration simply because of where one is,
• flights, office and equipment, and of course,
• local and government legislation to comply with.

British companies are, in many cases, at the kindness of the local factory. It’s almost impossible for a British firm to have a set up process if a company wants its own bespoke offices in China. There is still a good amount of local and national corruption and sometimes in order to get things done, palms have to be crossed and that can be expensive! The advantages are:

• YOUR people on the ground when where they are needed.
• Flexibility of being able to be utilised in other areas of manufacture
• On the spot decision making, avoiding lengthy emails and phone calls,
• Credibility with your customers so you can demonstrate that if a problem should arise, it can be dealt with quickly and efficiently. This is a real ‘comfort factor’ for many of the main retailers and not just in Nursery and adds to their confidence in the buying process particularly in the company they are buying from.