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Category: Ningbo Business
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Published: Sunday, 18 September 2011 22:38
News came a few days ago that the 270-butterfly-shaped wall lamp, independently developed by Ningbo UTEC Electric Appliances Company won the 2011 UK Lamp Design Award, which made a special report by BBC. “As the product was jointly developed by our design department and the French R&D center, it is a combination of both Chinese and Western styles, which is the key to the winning of the award”, said Zhu Yuehua, chairman of UTEC.
UTEC is a company engaged in production of outdoor lights, with the products going abroad 100%. In recent years, in developing new products, it has been confronted with a bottleneck: it finds it difficult to keep pace with leading companies of lights overseas. To go on imitating foreign products or develop their own products by hiring foreign talents? UTEC chose the latter.
In 2009, UTEC worked with the famous French design company-Design Pool to establish the French research and development center. “We pay the foreign talents flexibly such as awarding them according to the sale volume”, said Zhu Yuehua. Now the center has more than 30 researchers who keep developing a new product every quarter to cater to local consumers. Soon after that, UTEC spread the model to Sweden, Israel and other countries.
More than hiring foreign design talents, UTEC has also employed foreign sale talents who have expanded the markets from Middle East and South Asia to Europe and raised its yearly export volume from more than 1million dollars to nearly 10million dollars. UTEC has also set up offices abroad and holding companies in Russia, Italy and Germany, which have all achieved good economic benefits.
The foreign design and sales speed up UTEC’s reaching to the ends of the smile curve. In recent three years, the low-carbon and energy-efficient products have been replacing the traditional products at a rate of 15%. Now, more than 60% of its products are highly technical LED and solar lamps, the main profit source of the company. In the first half of this year, UTEC has successfully applied for more than 20 domestic and 22 foreign design patents.
During the first half year UTEC’s sale has achieved 181million Yuan with a year-on-year growth of 15%. The export price is more than twice that of the domestic counterparts. The UME outdoor lamp has made way to major supermarkets in EU and the independent brands sold in Germany this year has exceeded 30million, with the profit rate more than 30%.
“Enterprises should upgrade actively and update traditional products gradually rather than wait for the next crisis”, said Zhu. “UTEC will switch from OEM and ODM to OBM, trying to achieve a yearly sale volume of 1billion Yuan at the end of the twelfth five year plan period and become a world famous lighting supplier.”
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Category: Ningbo News
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Published: Sunday, 18 September 2011 22:35
The organizing committee of Ningbo international fashion festival (NIFF) announced in Shanghai that the 15th Ningbo Fashion Festival, sponsored by China National Textile And Apparel Council, Hong Kong Trade Development Council and the municipal government of Ningbo from October 19 to October 23.
With the theme of “ Creative Ningbo and Oriental Fashion ”, the festival will consist of a number of activities, such as the opening ceremony (including a party), fashion fair, trade talks, opening of the Hefeng CI Plaza, youth fashion culture festival, closing ceremony, etc. The opening ceremony, including a gala, will be named by the Youngor Group a grand theme performance of culture and art will be sponsored and named by/after the Youngor Group and the closing ceremony by the Peace Bird Group. By then, movie stars, celebrities, and famous models will appear at the evening party.
The fashion fair, as the core of this fashion festival, is to be put on in six halls of the Ningbo international conference and exhibition center, with a total of 2000 exhibition booths falling into eight sections, such as the men’s wear, fashion dress, children’s wear, brand garments section,OEM section,fabrics and machinery section, international section, garments producers and brands direct sales section, etc. Among them, the fashion dress hall is the first of the kind ever in the history of the festival.
This year’s fashion festival appears to be more international, for many world top designers will come to show their works, who are from UK, Italy, South Korea and Greece. They are to present eye feasts to the audiences in Ningbo. Adam,an international celebrated cosmetician will come to Ningbo to provide guidance for the makeup of models. The UK Fashion and Textile Association,Italian Florence Men’s Fashion Society and South Korean Fashion Association will present several fashion shows. A top designer from Greece will appear in Ningbo together with 5~6 famous designers. The NIFF organizing committee will put on a movie and fashion seminar with assistance from the Queen’s College of Oxford University, London College of Fashion,New York College of Fashion and the Vogue Magazine.
In addition, the organizing committee will hold the Pioneer Cup 2011 Chinese youth fashion culture festival, which include activities of fashion design competition, seminar on youth fashion, a wedding dress show and the 11th Children’s Fashion Culture Festival, and so on.