The future’s bright for China’s amusement giants, writes Adrian Lennox.

As western markets continue to reel from the effects of the worst economic downturn since the end of the Second World War, China continues to grow as a key player in the world theme park and amusements industry.

After officially becoming the world’s top manufacturing nation in 2010, ending 110 years of US leadership, it would perhaps be naive to single out any particular region for study.

The country now accounts for 19.8 per cent of the world’s manufacturing output (a figure that is set to grow further still throughout 2011), and as such is littered with several major industrial hubs, particularly around the Pearl River Delta; the central-eastern provinces of Jiangsu, Anhui and Henan; and, of course, the sprawling metropolitan areas around Beijing and Shanghai.

However, to plot the growth of one city in particular is to trace the growth of China’s now irrefutable links to the world theme park and attractions industry.

Over the past 20 years, the city of Zhongshan in the south-eastern Guangdong Province has become renowned for the manufacture of a full range of amusement products, from coin-operated gaming machines to major theme park rides.

Many leading manufacturers are based in the city, including Golden Horse Amusements, ESAC, Zhongshan Luck, Jinying Amusements, G-Look Amusement Machines, Golden Dragon and Zhongshan GuangYang.

The principal flashpoint for Zhongshan’s growth as a key Chinese amusement hub can be traced back more than 25 years, when western manufacturers began to realise the benefits of outsourcing certain business functions.

This activity initially focused on heavy industry, with factories scattered across the region enlisted in producing components, fibreglass polymers and moulded plastics for amusement rides and gaming products.

However, Zhongshan’s unique reputation for housing a series of towns focusing on particular industry sectors soon came to the fore, paving the way for numerous companies to become involved in producing fully finished, ready-for-market rides and attractions.

Globalisation is a reality, and competition is as fierce as ever. During the 1990s, due to a series of unrelated logistical catastrophes and negative media coverage (often churned out by despondent state-owned outlets in the west), China has intermittently acquired a reputation for unreliability and inferior quality.

However, the family of leading Zhongshan-based amusement groups have become a textbook example of the manner in which business in China is now well and truly grounded in the 21st century. ISO certification is now the standard among these companies, who are renowned for their quality products at affordable prices.

Moreover, Golden Dragon’s recent establishment of Dragon World marks a new chapter in the city’s maturity as a manufacturing giant. The sprawling complex is essentially a shop window for both domestic and foreign investors, and one which showcases not only amusement products from the host company, but also that of its competitors.

This collaborative effort marks a sea-change in business thinking in the region, with companies realising that the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts.

Of course, Zhongshan is by no means the only city in which to find a manufacturing partner in China. Companies such as Hengtaihua Amusements are leading the charge inland further north, while many more are scattered around the country’s major industrial cities.

Ultimately, as the Chinese amusement giants continue to bring new products to market at consistently competitive prices, those elsewhere have realised the need to compete in the future not only on the basis of commodity manufacturing, but on innovation and the new kinds of services that are driven by production industries.


Zhongshan: A titan of innovation

Zhongshan, along with Dongguan, Nanhai and Shunde, are dubbed as the Four Little Tigers in Guangdong Province.

The proximity of the sprawling city to the key knowledge centres and population bases of Hong Kong and Macau has, over recent years, proven to be a major fillip to the region’s economic development, especially in the manufacturing industries.

In the 1980s, Zhongshan had a relatively developed state-owned enterprise (SOE) sector that was used to stimulate township and village enterprise (TVE) development in the countryside. Currently, the SOE sector is much weaker, and the economy is dominated by foreign investment and TVEs, and also by various specialised manufacturing towns.

Uniquely, each of these towns is specialised in making a particular product. Most of the towns are so successful that they earn a reputation as a leading manufacturer in their own pillar industries. Indeed, ‘One Industry in One Town’ has become a uniquely idiosyncratic economic feature in Zhongshan.

Pillar industries in various specialised manufacturing towns in Zhongshan include:

•    Dachong Town – mahogany furniture
•    Dongfeng Town – electric household appliances
•    Guzhen Town – fitted lighting products
•    Huangpu Town – food industry-related hardware
•    Shaxi Town – casual wear manufacturing
•    Xiaolan Town – locks, hardware and electronic acoustic products

After establishing a national level research centre and specialised industrial zones, the government of Zhongshan has for a long time encouraged research and design in the region.

The Zhongshan National Torch High-Tech Industrial Development Zone was, for example, set up in the east of the city in 1990 by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the governments of Guangdong province and Zhongshan.

Zhongshan Port, which ranks among the top 10 ports nationwide in terms of container-handling capacity, is in the zone.