Haining City is known as the leather manufacturing cluster of China and is located about 60 km from Hangzhou. First we visited Haining City Lili Leather Garments. At the beginning of the tour we were given the chance to have a glance at some of the company’s products, such as leather jackets, vests, hand bags and many more. After that the tour continued through the various stages of the clothing production. Overall we were surprised by the good working conditions and the good atmosphere amongst the factory workers. We were able to cheer them up even more by distributing candies which was highly appreciated.
We moved on to the Nicelink Home Furnishing Company which as well is a family owned company located near to the Haining City Lili Leather Garments Co., Ltd. Nicelink is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) solely producing for US brands. The product range consists of sofa cover, finished sofas and sofa fabrics. Our tour guides, Frank and Daisy, which are well spoken in English due to their studies in England, guided us through the 22 acres (90’000 meter sqr) large premises.
At lunchtime we were invited by Mr. Wang, the owner of the first company, and enjoyed a very delicious meal with some specialities such as fried porkfeet, pigeon, shrimps, fish and crocodile eggs.
In our third tour through the Zhejiang Kaiyuan Leather Co., Ltd. we saw at first hand how the hard-working employees made their contribution to the high quality end-product. The end-product of this company is finished sheet of leather for further processing which is differentiated by 3 different degrees of quality. The best quality is sold for a price of USD 2.50 per square foot, whereas the second-best quality is sold at USD 2.30 and the third level of quality is sold at USD 2.00 to buyers located in Japan, South Korea and Europe.
Due to the lack of high heartbeat rate a few of us decided to enjoy the beautiful scenery of the Hangzhou and ran around the West Lake. Magnificent!