Long Oriental Hair, Lucrative Business: Feature

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, December 28, 2001

Long Oriental Hair, Lucrative Business: Feature

For Zheng Youquan, a farmer-turned millionaire in China's most populous province of Henan, oriental long hair is not only the mainstay of the region's aesthetic culture but also the raw material for his lucrative business.

His privately-owned wig-making Rebecca Hair Product Company based in Xuchang City of Henan earned over 40 million U.S. dollars in pretax profits in the year that marked China's accession into the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Rebecca is the largest hair product company in China, which is now the world's leading wig-making center.

Zheng said he named the company after his favorite English novel "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier.

Rebecca is now one of about 30 hair product companies in Xuchang, which has an over 200 year history as China's hair distribution center, and is the center of China's wig-making industry.

Zheng's family has been involved in the hair purchasing business in Xuchang for generations. His father, now 75 years old, began business as a teenage boy. However, like other people in the business, he did not know why Japanese and Koreans bought so much hair from China until 1993, when his son set up the Rebecca label to produce hair products.

"We have never thought of making wigs. It was beyond our imagination," said Zheng Hongfu, who used to check the quality of the hair purchased by Rebecca for making wigs.

Now, his role has been replaced by a number of "foreign guys," as he says.

The Rebecca company employing nearly 2,000 workers, mainly surplus rural labors from Henan, uses 850 tons of hair annually to make a variety of hair products, and both the material and the product varieties keep increasing.

Through 2,000 purchasing and sales outlets, hair of different length and colors is airlifted from India, Vietnam, Myanmar and Russia and China's inland region to Xuchang, and exported after being combed and processed by thousands of Xuchang girls.

Hair products from Xuchang are exported to over a dozen of countries in North America, Western Europe and Africa. They have occupied 65 percent of the American market.

"Globalization has given us more choices and opportunities than ever," said Zheng Youquan.

According to his research, wigs have been used to demonstrate cultural prosperity throughout oriental history. Wigs were first found in the tombs of the ancient Egyptian royals, and was commonly exploited to add the beauty of the chignon to noble Chinese women. It has now become an important part of the fashion industry.

"Fashion trends in hair are as important as in clothes, which creates an enormous market potential," said the manager of Rebecca.

Cutting long braids, which symbolized shaking feudalism bondage, marked the start of China's democratic reforms at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is said that some Jewish people discovered the business when they abandoned long hair, and exported it to Europe for making wigs.

This is how the business in Xuchang started, said the senior Zheng. The business has been greatly enlarged by people in Xuchang, who make products from hair the largest export item in Henan Province.

Zhao Guijun, manager of the securities investment department of Rebecca, said that China gave the green light to privately-owned companies to obtain licenses for handling foreign trade in 1999, which allowed companies like Rebecca to go international.

The young manager who majored in international finance is responsible for making preparations for Rebecca to be listed on stock exchanges, which may be possible next year.

"Chinese entrepreneurs are still new to the international market. We should try hard to become familiar with the rules of global competition, " said Guan Weichen, vice manager of the DPC Hair Product Co..

A share-holding company with Hong Kong investment DPC Hair Product Co. is a competitor of Rebecca.

Guan said that after China's entry into WTO, the competition among Chinese export companies is not be on the international market, but lies in interior management, the decision-making power and technological research standard of the enterprises.