News

Brand centers provide province-wide strength

Updated: 2010-07-29 15:02

As various regions across the nation wave the flag to build and expand industrial zones, Jiangsu is taking another path — developing centers that cultivate brands.

Such brand bases are not defined geographically, Feng Xinghan, head of the trademark department of the Jiangsu Administration of Industry and Commerce, told China Daily.

Unlike the frequently seen traditional industrial zone, which usually refers to a specific locale where a cluster of factories are sited next door to each other, a brand cultivation center does not require companies to move to a designated place.

Instead, they may be scattered around a city or district but are still seen as part of a whole, Feng said, so are usually named after cities, counties or districts.

Integrating brands with regional economic development is a new approach, said She Yihe, chief of the provincial industrial and commercial administration, with local companies encouraged to strengthen their own brands, which in turn improves the overall competitiveness of local economy.

Last year the province announced the first group of 28 brand centers with more than 4,000 companies, which operate in a wide rang of industries including farm products, textiles and garments, medicine, electronics, machinery and software.

Jiangyin, which has topped all counties in the nation for seven consecutive years, is among the first batch. Its number of trademarks has grown by four digits annually over the period. It now has more than 11,600 trademarks with some 5,000 applications still being processed.

Focused on the textiles and garment sector, the Jiangyin base is home to leading industrial players like Sunshine and Heilan.

Ye Huili, vice-president of Heilan, one of the largest Chinese men’s wear producers, said her company had a bumpy ride in its formative years due to weak awareness about trademarks.

Heilan’s first trademark Sanmao became popular with customers, but the company had to give it up after a prolonged copyright dispute because it was also the name of a classic carton boy character. The company later replaced the old trademark with its Shuaimao brand and developed other two for its differentiated lineup. All three trademarks have become core brands of the company that are now registered in more than 50 countries and regions.

As its brands became popular they were victimized by infringement. “Officials in the industry and commerce administration have helped us a lot in fighting counterfeits,” Ye said.

“Without their aid, it would be extremely difficult to protect our company’s interests, especially in the case of infringement outside the province,” she added.

Like Heilan, other local companies that started as village workshops have benefited from consultancy services offered by the authorities as well as more regulated commercial behavior and inter-province cooperation on trademark protection.

Among the rising trademark centers are Yixing, which has 10 percent of the domestic market in wire and cable, Dieshiqiao, which has 907 household textile companies with combined sales surpassing 30 billion yuan last year, and the Donghai silicon industry base contributed nearly half of the county’s gross domestic product.

The province’s total registered trademarks have surged 105 percent to more than 56,5000 in 2009 from about 27,500 a year previous.