From a Small Packaging Workshop to a National Top Ten: Inside Liuhe Fengrun's Hometown Poverty-Alleviation Story

Xinxiang Liuhe Fengrun Packaging Co., Ltd. has come home. General Manager Yang Guoli brought the business back to his hometown and based it in the standardized factory buildings of the north zone of the Huojia industrial cluster. Under his leadership, the group — one main plant, four manual branch plants and one rope factory — has grown from an unremarkable processing shop into an enterprise ranked among the national top ten in its industry, with regular customers including Shuanghui Group, Yinlu Group and Yangyuan Group, a broad market and dependable order flow.

General Manager Yang Guoli — with dozens of customers such as Shuanghui and Wahaha on the books, paper box sales are never a concern.

Today, the Liuhe Packaging poverty-alleviation project in Huojia County, Xinxiang City, Henan Province, works through Xinxiang Liuhe Fengrun Packaging Co., Ltd. to draw social capital into joint investment. Employment bases have been established in villages including Qianwufu, Daguanzhuang, Yang'erzhuang, Daqing, Dongfuzhuang, Zhiwang and Yuezhuang, together with the associated floor area. To date the project has put local residents to work, among them impoverished laborers, lifting per-capita annual income and giving poor households a job on their own doorstep — and with it the confidence to leave poverty behind. The company now plans to add another round of poverty-alleviation employment projects.

Xinxiang Liuhe Fengrun Packaging Co., Ltd. sits in the Yuezhuang standardized factory buildings in the north zone of the Huojia County Industrial Cluster Area; its predecessor was a packaging processing plant in Zhengzhou. The company is a printing and packaging business that integrates the design, production, sales and service of handbags, gift boxes, cake boxes and premium packaging boxes. Its operations cover the printing of packaging and decorative printed matter, paper sales, and the processing and sale of coated paper bags, non-woven bags, paper products and packaging ropes.

A mix of internal growth needs and external constraints prompted General Manager Yang Guoli to head home with technology, equipment and the ambition to build a first-class packaging enterprise; he then moved the company into the standardized factory buildings in the north zone of the cluster.

Liuhe Fengrun Packaging today comprises one main plant, four manual branch plants and one rope factory, with its own workforce and a sizeable base of fixed assets and total assets. Its products go mainly to dozens of customers, among them Henan Shuanghui Investment and Development Co., Ltd., Hebei Yangyuan Zhi Hui Beverage Co., Ltd. and Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., Ltd.

Even as business flourished, Yang Guoli never set aside his social responsibility or his commitment to giving back. For years the company has kept hiring disadvantaged groups — laid-off workers, elderly people living alone and people with disabilities — as a practical contribution to poverty alleviation.

"Packaging is a low-barrier, flexible business — if you have hands, you can do the work," Yang says. "So why shouldn't we offer a job to poor households and disadvantaged groups? When we first moved into the north zone of the county industrial cluster, we enjoyed plenty of government support. Now we can help poor people get back to work, earn more and live better, while also doing our bit for a moderately prosperous society. Why wouldn't we?"

From a small workshop to a national top ten: Liuhe Packaging pairs poverty alleviation with growth

Yang's company has already created a large number of jobs, with people with disabilities and re-employed laid-off workers each making up a considerable share. At Liuhe Fengrun Packaging, pay and benefits are the same for everyone: piece-rate, with more work rewarded by more pay. Disadvantaged groups receive special care, so that every employee shares in the company's concern and the warmth of a family.

At Liuhe Packaging's site in Fengzhuang Town, an elderly woman still works meticulously on the front line of the workshop. She arrives with a smile every time, and often brings Yang Guoli a small gift. "These are vegetables from my own garden — just a token of my thanks," she says. "If Mr. Yang hadn't asked me to come and glue paper boxes, where would an old woman with bad legs find work? Now I earn with my own hands and bring money home every month. I can help with the household bills, buy my little grandson toys, and I no longer have to watch my daughter-in-law's mood. Life keeps getting better."

Aim high, but walk the road one step at a time. Yang Guoli took Liuhe Packaging from a tiny processing plant to a top-ten national ranking, and the hardships along the way are beyond what outsiders can imagine. His usual line: "When a company is small, it belongs to you; when it grows big, it belongs to society. Giving back is the breadth of mind that a company and an entrepreneur ought to have."

Order-driven production, secure sales. The company builds to order. Its regular customers include Shuanghui Group, Yinlu Group and Yangyuan Group, giving it a wide market and worry-free demand.

A low technical threshold that suits a broad range of workers. As a labor-intensive operation, its poverty-alleviation sites mostly handle folding, pasting and stringing of paper boxes — simple enough for rural left-behind women, older people and workers with disabilities, which neatly solves the employment problem faced by the elderly, weak, sick, disabled and female members of poor households.

Flexible hours — earn money and care for the family at the same time. Wages are paid by piece and working hours are flexible, so a member of a poor household can earn every day while still looking after the home.

No capital required, no risk to bear. Unlike starting a business, taking a job at a poverty-alleviation site involves no up-front money and no risk; income is guaranteed and more work means more pay.

— This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-353206.html