Frontier Friendship

A Chinese town becomes a key link in trade and exchange with neighbors in Southeast and South Asia

- Yu Lintao

When Hong Kong-headquartered headwear company Yangzhou Everbright decided to open a base in Yunnan province in southwest China, it took only 45 days from the first field trip to the spot it had chosen, the industrial park in Ruili city, to production beginning at the new plant on May 8.

“It was not just Ruili’s advantageous location as a Chinese gateway to the Southeast Asian market that made us invest here,” said Yuan Xiaobing, director of Yangzhou Everbright’s new plant in Ruili.

The city’s strategic position as one of China’s key experimental zones for development and opening up and the all-around service and customized solutions that the industrial park provides were the clinching factors in his company’s quick decision to build the new plant here.

Besides headwear manufacturing, which is its primary business, Yangzhou Everbright also makes bags, suitcases and clothes. A group with five factories and international trade, it has partners among the world’s top sports organizations, such as the U.S. National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and National Football League.

Border trade base

Ruili, a city neighboring Myanmar with a permanent population of around 210,000, was listed as a pilot area for border trade in the early days of China’s reform and opening up in the 1980s, especially to develop trade with Myanmar. This laid the foundation for the city’s development and opened it up to frontier trade and tourism.