In-depth Interpretation of the Development Path of Guzhen Lighting: From Imitation to Creation

　　"To see lighting trends, look at Beijing and Shanghai; to see Beijing and Shanghai's lighting, look at Guzhen" — this has been a popular saying in the lighting industry for some time. It speaks to the influence of Guzhen in Zhongshan, known as the "Capital of China's Lighting Industry," within the sector.

　　Guzhen originally had no historical tradition in the lighting industry; the development of its lighting industry is a matter of only the past 30 years.

　　Over these 30 years, the local lighting industry has gone from nothing to something, from small to large, from obscurity to global renown. In particular, since being recognized in 2000 by the Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology as one of the first batch of "Guangdong Provincial Specialized Towns Technology Innovation Pilot Units," the town's Party committee and government have attached great importance to the pilot work. They specifically established a "Leading Group for Technology Innovation Work in Guzhen Lighting Specialized Town," with the town mayor and the deputy mayor in charge of science, technology and industry serving as group leader and deputy group leader, to coordinate the formulation and implementation of the town's overall lighting industry development plan and technology innovation plan, comprehensively promoting technology innovation work and putting the lighting industry on a fast track of development. Driven by the technology innovation work in specialized towns, Guzhen has started with scientific planning, unswervingly followed the path of promoting quality improvement through technological innovation and building a regional brand, achieving remarkable results.

Today, Guzhen has gradually developed into a massive industrial cluster integrating lighting production and lighting trade. The town has over 3,000 lighting manufacturers, more than 2,500 lighting shops, and over 3,600 enterprises in supporting sectors such as hardware accessories, plastics, packaging and printing, and freight transportation. The lighting and related supporting industries account for more than 70% of the town's total manufacturing. In 2009, the town achieved a gross domestic product of 7.414 billion yuan, with a per capita output value of 105,100 yuan. The total industrial and agricultural output value reached 22.5 billion yuan, of which the lighting output value was 16.606 billion yuan, accounting for as high as 73.8%. According to statistics, compared with the initial period of professional town construction, Guzhen's industrial scale, gross output, number of enterprises, workforce, per capita income and other economic and social indicators have all increased by more than 3.5 times.

Planning: Ensuring Sustainable and Healthy Development of the Industrial Cluster

'The professional town innovation pilot emphasizes planning first, which has brought us tangible benefits. In the next 3 to 5 years, Guzhen will build 3 million square meters of new lighting exhibition and sales centers. Combined with the existing 1.5 million square meters, this will become the world's largest and unique lighting marketing center. Land acquisition would surely be the biggest headache elsewhere for such a large-scale infrastructure project, but in Guzhen there is no need to worry, because we thought ahead. The land certificates for these plots are already held by the town government or the villages.' Wei Hongrui, Deputy Mayor of Guzhen, said this with a relaxed expression.

According to Wei Hongrui, since the establishment of the professional town, planning has become the top priority of the town. In 2001, the town government formulated, approved and implemented the 'Guzhen Professional Town Technological Innovation Development Plan'. In 2002, it commissioned a professional company to compile the 'Guzhen Lighting Industry Development Strategic Plan', which was revised in 2005 to become the main basis for guiding industrial development. The Plan clearly states that the development of the lighting industry must focus on enhancing enterprises' awareness of technological and quality innovation, take the cultivation of a group of strong and excellent enterprises to carry out technological innovation, technical transformation, brand creation and other work as a breakthrough, take the town-level technological innovation system as the radiation and support platform, and actively promote the 'horizontal' and 'vertical' development of the lighting industry. 'Horizontal' development refers to strengthening the mutual penetration between different categories such as home lighting, commercial lighting, engineering lighting, and landscape lighting to thicken the industrial chain links; 'vertical' development refers to improving the supply of supporting parts, outsourcing processing, assembly, quality inspection and certification, freight and other links to lengthen the industrial chain. After years of cultivation, the 'Outdoor Decorative Lighting Fixture Production Base' and 'High-Efficiency Energy-Saving Lighting Fixture Industry Base' have taken shape. Currently, Guzhen is taking the opportunity of building the National Torch Program Characteristic Industry Base and the Guangdong Province LED Lighting Industry Industry-University-Research Cooperation Demonstration Base to study LED semiconductor lighting product development, industry incubation, and key enterprise cultivation and other industrial development plans.

In addition, in response to industrial restructuring and upgrading and the improvement of industrial development quality and efficiency, the town Party committee and town government have stepped up their efforts to implement the 'Development Strategy of Combining Technological Innovation with Industrial Development'. On the basis of the comprehensive introduction and implementation in 2008 of a series of policy incentive measures such as the 'Interim Measures of Guzhen Town for Special Funds to Encourage Technological Innovation and Promote Industrial Upgrading', in 2009 the 'Opinions of Guzhen Town on Promoting the Construction of Standardized Industrial Plants and Professional Markets' was formulated, which effectively promoted the sustained and healthy development of the lighting industry cluster economy.

　　Platform: Providing strong support for innovation and upgrading

　In Guzhen, lamp companies only need to spend 10 yuan to upload a lighting fixture design drawing online, and the Intellectual Property Quick Rights Protection Center will affix a virtual "timestamp" to it. With this "timestamp", protection for design patents can be established. Huang Zhitong, Director of the Science and Technology Office of Guzhen, said that it used to take nearly a year to apply for a design patent, but with the Quick Rights Protection Center, a patent can be registered in just 15 days, providing more effective protection for the company's intellectual property. "Companies welcome this kind of service the most. Financial support is actually not the most important thing; the biggest help government departments can provide to enterprises is to do what companies cannot do."

　The most prominent manifestation of government departments "doing what enterprises cannot do" in Guzhen is reflected in the construction of various innovation platforms such as the "Intellectual Property Quick Rights Protection Center". Over the years, these platforms have provided strong technical support for enterprises to enhance their core competitiveness and for industrial innovation and upgrading.

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　　In terms of information platforms:

　　In 1999, to host the first Lighting Fair, the town government invested over 1 million yuan, strengthened technical cooperation with the telecommunications department, and established the Guzhen Lighting website with the domain name "lightcity.com.cn", formally creating an information platform to promote the overall image of Guzhen, the Guzhen lighting brand, and its enterprises, thereby promoting the goal of "Let the world know Guzhen, and let Guzhen lighting go global."

　　In 2001, the town government invested nearly 3 million yuan to further improve the construction and functions of the "lightcity.com.cn" website, building a large information platform integrating government, public services, industry, agriculture, and commerce. This propelled the informatization work of the ancient town to a new level and played an important role in the successful hosting of the 2nd Lighting Expo in 2002, encouraging more and more lighting enterprises to use the Internet to collect the latest domestic and international information on technologies, design techniques, and product supply and demand.

　　In 2004, with the strong support of the Zhongshan Municipal Science and Technology Bureau, the town government introduced Zhongshan Jinke Information Co., Ltd., jointly investing more than 3 million yuan to promote the "Lighting E-commerce Project for a Thousand Enterprises in Guzhen". They built the "China Lighting Capital" website and the "China Lighting Trade Network". Currently, the "China Lighting Trade Network" has gathered over 30,000 professional lighting members and more than 80,000 lighting products worldwide, with daily page views exceeding 20,000, ranking first among lighting industry websites in the Alexa network ranking by the world's authoritative evaluation organization.

　　In terms of R&D platforms:

　　In 2001, with the guidance and support of the provincial and municipal science, technology, and economic and trade departments, the town government invested 3 million yuan to establish a science and technology innovation system with the Zhongshan (Guzhen) Lighting Engineering Research and Development Center and the Zhongshan (Guzhen) Enterprise Technology Center as its main bodies. Through cooperation with Fudan University, Tianjin University, Sun Yat-sen University, and other institutions of higher learning, research was carried out on projects such as lighting product testing, metal surface treatment of lighting products, and enterprise management informatization.

　　In 2003, lighting and lamp products were listed by the state as the first batch of products subject to mandatory certification. The Lighting Engineering Center made good use of the technical foundation of its own laboratory to effectively cooperate with the Provincial Product Quality Supervision and Inspection Center in pre-inspection work for product certification, accelerating the speed at which enterprises obtained mandatory certification (also known as CCC certification). As a result, 95% of the lighting enterprises in the town required to be certified obtained CCC certification on time, gaining legal product sales rights, effectively promoting a batch of enterprises to new levels in terms of product quality, technical standards, and other aspects.

　　In 2004, Guzhen cooperated with the municipal quality supervision bureau to relocate the "Guangdong Province Technical Supervision Lighting Product Quality Supervision and Inspection Station" to Guzhen. Through a joint investment of 3 million yuan by the municipal government, the municipal quality supervision department, and the town government, the station's expansion and the procurement of advanced equipment were completed, further expanding the station's testing service functions and strengthening its supervision and testing capabilities. Currently, the station has been upgraded to an important inspection station of the National Lighting Product Quality Supervision and Inspection Center (Zhongshan). It undertakes supervision sampling inspections of more than 3,000 batches of products from lighting and lamp decoration manufacturing enterprises in areas surrounding Guzhen, and submission inspections of nearly 1,000 new products each year, truly playing a significant role in combining quality supervision with technical services.

　　Currently, the "Guzhen Lighting Product Quality Testing Platform Construction" project has successfully passed the evaluation and acceptance of the National Innovation Fund; the "Guzhen Lighting Patent Information Platform Construction and Application Demonstration" project has received special fund support from the provincial SME service platform; the "One-Stop World Lighting Patent Information Service Platform" has been put into use and provides services for nearly a thousand lighting enterprises; the "LED Lighting New Product Testing Laboratory" has been fully completed, providing quality testing and R&D services for nearly a hundred lamp decoration enterprises. The continuous improvement of innovation platforms and system construction has provided strong technical support for industrial innovation and upgrading.

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　　Brands: Driving Traditional Industries Toward the High End

　　Equal emphasis on standards and intellectual property rights is a major feature of Guzhen's lamp decoration brand building.

　　In recent years, the town government has attached great importance to the standardization of industrial clusters. First, it has done a good job in product standard implementation and quality certification to ensure the quality level of Guzhen's lamp decoration products. For lighting products that have implemented national standards, it has actively introduced the Guangdong Province Product Quality Supervision and Inspection Center, which has product quality certification qualifications, to establish a branch in Guzhen, carrying out the acceptance, testing, and on-site review of national 3C, U.S. UL, German GS, ISO9000 series quality management system and other certifications, prompting Guzhen's lamp decoration enterprises to establish effective standard systems in quality control, production management, sales services, personnel training, corporate image identification, material procurement, etc. Currently, more than 1,300 enterprises in the town and more than 1,800 products have obtained national 3C certification, more than 400 enterprises and more than 600 products have obtained international product quality certifications such as UL and GS, more than 70 enterprises have obtained ISO9001 series quality management system certification; 15 enterprises and 20 products have also obtained international standard certification. Second, it has strengthened technical cooperation and actively participated in the formulation of new product standards in the lighting industry. In 2006, the town lighting engineering center cooperated with the provincial product quality supervision and inspection center and successfully applied to the National Technical Committee for Standardization of Lighting Appliances to become the main drafting unit of the national standard "Performance Requirements for LED Modules for General Lighting". Currently, "Performance Requirements for LED Modules for General Lighting" and "Safety Requirements for LED Modules for General Lighting" have successfully passed the review and become national standards. In addition, in 2009 alone, 7 enterprises in Guzhen participated in the standard drafting of 25 sub-projects in the LED series.

With the rapid development of the lighting industry, in a situation where the market economy system is not yet perfect, unfair competition phenomena such as trademark squatting, counterfeiting of origins and product quality certifications, and infringement of patented products occur from time to time, seriously affecting the reputation of Guzhen lighting. To this end, the town party committee and government clearly put forward: to use scientific and technological means to enhance the grade of lighting, and to maintain the marketing position in the market through the effect of famous and high-quality products. While intensifying the rectification of counterfeit and substandard products as well as unfair competition behaviors, a variety of services related to enterprise intellectual property rights have been carried out. Recently, the State Intellectual Property Office approved the establishment of the "China Zhongshan (Lighting) Intellectual Property Rapid Rights Protection Center" in Zhongshan Guzhen. It is understood that this center is currently the only rapid rights protection institution for intellectual property established for a single industry in the country.

"In the future, not only Guzhen's enterprises, but also lighting enterprises across the country may come to register," said Wei Hourui. The rapid rights protection center has a great promoting effect on standardizing market order, guiding enterprises to compete fairly, and enhancing independent innovation capabilities. At the same time, it will safeguard and support the original rights and interests of those enterprises that truly develop independently and possess independent intellectual property rights. This will undoubtedly enhance independent innovation capabilities and the core competitiveness of the characteristic industry, propelling Guzhen's characteristic lighting industry toward high-end and internationalization.

In addition, in order to vigorously promote regional brand building and promote industrial optimization and upgrading, in 2006, the town government clearly put forward four levels of brand building: first, to build the regional brand of "China Lighting Capital" representing the overall image of Guzhen; second, to build the "Guzhen Lighting" brand representing the overall level of Guzhen's lighting industry; third, to build the "China (Guzhen) International Lighting Expo" as an international exhibition brand representing the new "business card" of Guzhen's economic and social image; fourth, to actively promote enterprises to implement brand strategies, create famous brands, establish standards, and grow bigger and stronger.

Nowadays, the regional brand of "China Lighting Capital" of Guzhen has become famous both at home and abroad. The "Guzhen Lighting" trademark has been registered and has become a famous trademark of Guangdong Province. The "China (Guzhen) International Lighting Expo," as a well-known professional exhibition in the industry, has been successfully held for 9 sessions, and was included in the Guangdong Modern Industry Top 500 Project in 2010. At present, the town has obtained 16 enterprises and 26 products with national and provincial famous trademarks and brand-name products, including 2 China well-known trademarks, 2 China brand-name products, 7 Guangdong Province brand-name products, and 15 Guangdong Province famous trademarks.

(Responsible editor: zhouboone)