Worldwide Wenzhou Entrepreneurs - The Wealth Creation Legend of Seven Million Wenzhou Businessmen

Author: Long Xinming
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-10-01
Features: It is universally acknowledged that Wenzhou people can make money. The Jews are revered as the "Great Merchants," while Wenzhou people are globally recognized as the "Oriental Jews." Just a dozen years after Wenzhou people made their mark on the European continent, they completely crushed the real Jews, leaving them defeated and disoriented. Their exceptional business acumen shocked the world: Are there any groups of people who are better at business than the Jews! Not everyone is cut out to be in business, but why are Wenzhou people so skilled in commerce? What is the secret formula behind their success?
The Wenzhou merchants who influenced the world Three hundred years ago, Wenzhou was just a small county by the East Sea, where the residents were either farmers or fishermen. Legend has it that some Wenzhou people resorted to piracy out of poverty back then. Over 20 years ago, two-thirds of Wenzhou's population lived below the poverty line, with an average annual income of less than 200 yuan per person and only 0.41 acres of arable land per capita. Due to Wenzhou's geographical location and national strategic considerations, the country invested only more than 600 million yuan in Wenzhou over 30 years, which was only one-seventh of the average investment in comparable cities.
"The folk songs of Pingyang beggars, Wen'an people smugglers, and Dongtou relying on loans to survive" were rampant back then, all conveying the helplessness of Wenzhou people's destitute lives. In 1957, Wenzhou's industrial and agricultural output value was only 760 million yuan. From 1957 to 1976, the average annual growth rate of Wenzhou's industrial and agricultural output value was only 1.98%. This was the struggling reality of Wenzhou for nearly two decades. So, with no other choice, the impoverished Wenzhou people were forced to seek livelihoods outside their hometown.
At that time in China, walking down any alley in a city, one could hear the sound of beating cotton, "," and often see Wenzhou shoemakers hammering away at their shoes. In various beauty salons, the voices of Mandarin with a hint of Western Zhejiang dialect would echo. Even in remote Xinjiang's Altai Mountains, Wenzhou people followed nomads around, just to repair and polish their shoes. At that time, some wise people were amazed: The terrifying Wenzhou people!
Indeed, over 20 years later, Wenzhou has proudly become one of China's wealthiest small cities. How did Wenzhou transform from a resource-scarce, geographically isolated speck of land into a people-centered economic paradise? There is a story that made Wenzhou people proud: In 1998, a famous Japanese lighter company, which was renowned worldwide, could not believe that Wenzhou people had made the lighter business so successful, forcing Japanese and Korean manufacturers to the brink of bankruptcy. Therefore, they sent an economic and trade delegation to visit Wenzhou, aiming to solve a mystery: How could the retail price of Wenzhou lighters be only one-tenth of that of Japanese lighters?
At the renowned Dayu Lighter Factory in Wenzhou, the introduction by owner Zhou Dahu almost made the Japanese delegation faint: For the same electronic lighter component, a Japanese company produced one at a cost of 1 yuan, while Zhou Dahu's purchase price was only 0.1 yuan, and the production cost of the family-run enterprises supplying parts to Dayu Factory was as low as 0.01 yuan. When the Japanese delegation left, they were all pale with shock. Upon returning home, they had no choice but to shut down their lighter factories.
Wenzhou people, with no capital, no technology, and no backing,