by GE Zhenwei
Dalang, a populous town in China’s manufacturing hub of Dongguan, is well-known for its woolens. It raises no sheep and spins no yarn, but nonetheless produces almost a billion sweaters every year.
Go Rams!
Recently, the town’s basketball team took second place in a nationwide village basketball tournament known as the CunBA. It’s quite a big deal in a country of many thousands of villages. But it’s not just about sporting glory - second prize was three goats.
In a ovine-free township, entirely dependent of our fleecy friends, this was interpreted as the most auspicious possible omen.
High-street fame
In 1979, a Hong Kong company set up the first the first knitwear company in Dalang, bringing the first knitting machine and a group of skilled workers. During the early 1990s, Dalang locals set up family workshops after the fashion of the Hong Kong company. In 2002, Dalang was officially recognized as an official Sweater Production Town by the National Textile and Apparel Council.
Today, after 40 years of development, Dalang has a complete industry chain, generating over 72 billion yuan (US$990 million) a year. Companies sourcing from this town include almost every high-street fashion brand - UNIQLO, Gap and Calvin Klein, to name just a few.
Everything knits together
"Dalang now has over 10,0000 companies manufacturing woolen knitwear, thousands selling yarn, nearly 100 producing machines and equipment," said ZHONG Jinfa, of the Dalang knitters association.
With 200,000 employees and about 1,000 computerized knitting machines, Dalang is the world's largest concentration of such machines and produces 900 million sweaters in a year.
Golden fleeces
Since 2008, the government has coughed subsidies of up to 2,000 yuan for every computerized knitting machine.
“Dongguan came up with 10 million yuan, and Dalang itself provided another 10 million yuan to support the industry,” said Zhong.
Dalang is aiming for an annual output of over 100 billion yuan in the next few years.
