Zheng'an county, one of the 14 severely impoverished counties in Southwest China's Guizhou province, has found success in focusing on guitar manufacturing in its poverty alleviation efforts, providing a breakthrough in increasing income for local residents.
The county used to be unknown to the public. Its local economy was fueled by labor export and farming. However, it has started to gain a reputation for its guitar manufacturing, attracting businessmen from all over the world.
The Zheng'an International Guitar Manufacturing Park currently possesses 54 guitar manufacturing related companies, provides contract manufacturing for six of the top 10 guitar brands in the word, and boasts over 20 self-owned brands.
In 2018, the park manufactured and sold over 6 million guitars worth 6 billion yuan ($872.39 million), becoming one of the largest scale guitar manufacturing bases in the world. About 60 percent of the guitars manufactured there are exported to more than 30 countries and regions.
Its preferential policies, labor advantage, and low land costs has helped Zheng'an convince guitar manufacturing companies to transfer from East China to Guizhou. This includes Zhen Chuanjiu, who started Guangzhou Shenqu Musical Instrument Manufacturing Co and decided to open another company in Zheng'an, his hometown.
Zheng'an is accelerating the construction of a world famous guitar manufacturing cluster while launching projects related to guitar culture to make Zhen'an International Guitar Manufacturing Park a national cultural industrial demonstration park, said Wu Qi, head of Zheng'an county.