Quality Products International

In China, many factory and office workers have already started leaving for their CNY holiday.

Most remaining factories will close down around the weekend of Friday 13^th January, and the remaining ones closing sometime during the following week.

Some offices will re-open late January, though you should not expect factories to be operating “normally” until well into February.

QPI Ltd

QPI will be continuing to operate through Chinese New Year.

Though Chinese operations will be offline Thursday 19^th January – Saturday 28^th January.

For urgent enquiries please email qpig@qpiltd.com as it will fwd to the UK staff as well.

QPI Ltd Shenzhen office in Guo Mao will be closed Thursday 19^th January – Thursday 2^nd February.

Helmut will be working remotely, though will be online less frequently than normal, and should contacted by phone / SMS for anything urgent.

For additional information about CNY and how it may impact you, please see:

CNY alert

Post CNY Production Caution

CNY dates 2011 – 2019

Chinese New Year (CNY) is the major holiday in Asia which especially effects production in China.

Many factories will close some days or even a week before the CNY date listed below.  They would not normally return to full production for several weeks or up to a month after the CNY date.

Year       Date                      Symbol

2011        February 3           Rabbit

2012       January 23           Dragon

2013       February 10        Snake

2014       January 31           Horse

2015       February 19        Sheep

2016       February 8          Monkey

2017       January 28           Rooster

2018       February 16        Dog

2019       February 5          Pig

For links to earlier blogs on this, please see:

http://www.qpiltd.com/cny-alert

http://www.qpiltd.com/chinese-new-year-in-china-more-than-just-fireworks

http://www.qpiltd.com/china-almost-back-to-normal-after-cny-will-your-production-be-ok

Quality Products International Limited is working for a client looking to order 5 Million plain white T-shirts, with a follow on order of a further 6 Million pieces.

Any interested parties should contact QPI Ltd directly for further details.

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The Canton Fair and others are approaching in late October – November.

If the prospect of Chinese Trade Fairs is a little daunting, or especially if you want ensure that you gain the maximum value out of the time and expense of the trade fair, it is worth considering engaging a local guide.

The main focus of QPI Ltd is on Quality Control and Product Development, however we are always happy to assist our clients.

Having been based in China for many years, QPI has local Chinese staff on hand who are fluent in spoken English, understand trade and are familiar with the trade fair environment.

If you are planning to travel to the Canton Fair and want to ensure you make the most of  it, please contact us in advance so that we can assist.

Either by arraigning some staff to assist you at the trade fair. We can also offer some tips, advise or direct assistance with visa invitation letters, hotels, trains and other local ground transport.

There was a recent article in the NY Times about staying connected cheaply while travelling.

An excerpt:

I’ve put a lot of effort into figuring out tricks for being reachable by phone and e-mail without spending a fortune. Trust me, it’s easy to run up a thousand-dollar bill on your cellphone in a single trip if you don’t know the ins and outs. And not being in touch at all can be even more costly.

He also invites readers to comment.

Some of my own comments were:

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See also: CNY dates 2011 – 2019 CNY Village life Post CNY Production Caution

With the new years eve behind us, and business in the west is ramping up for the year.  Here is a friendly reminder from QPILtd that CNY is fast approaching!

Chinese New Year celebrates the New Year according to the Lunar calender, and as such varies from year to year.

See CNY dates 2011 – 2019 for this year, as well as coming years for easy reference.

It is also seen as the advent of Spring, even though much of country will be under a thick cover of snow, CNY is also often referred to as the “Spring Festival”

Most factories will be rushing to get production out before the holidays, and clients should expect freight prices to increase significantly in the second half of January.

Almost all business and particularly factories in Mainland China will be closed for about week or more in early February, with some closing from Friday 28th January to Monday 7th February.

Many business in Hong Kong and across South East Asia will be closed for a few days around 2nd and 3rd of February.

It is worth noting that within China Mainland, CNY is the major family holiday. As such it represent the largest annual human migration on the planet,  with approximately 200Million people returning to their home towns to celebrate the Spring Festival.

Travel within China will be crowded and expensive. As an example many train travelers will only be able to get a “standing ticket” for journeys that may be 20 – 30 hours long.

Clients should also bear in mind that many factories have a slow start after CNY.

Often workers will stay on at home for an extended holiday, or choose the new year to look for different work.

From a quality perspective, that can often mean that the factory who was reliably shipping product last year, may have new middle management, supervisors and production staff. That can often lead to Quality Control issues!

QPI Ltd remains ready to assist with DUPRO (during production), PSI (Pre Shipment Inspection) and other QC matters.

Most of our QC team will be off work for the first week in February, however we will have a limited office staff operating right through CNY.

We recommend using our   qpig (at) qpig (dot) hk  email during CNY as it is also directed to our colleagues in the UK office.

All the best from the entire QPI team for 2011 and the coming year of the Rabbit.

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During the last weekend in November 2010, some of our staff visited the FuXin area, in Liaoning Province, located in North-East China. This area is rich in history, notably once a part of old “Manchuria”, and in more recent times resident to a large Mongolian population.

Farmer's stock peanuts, with foreign material

One of our joint venture partners has a proprietary interest in the local peanut farming co-operatives and in conjunction with the local governing committee, is developing better facilities for the local producers. Quality Products International Limited (QPI Ltd) has three roles in the co-operative:

A. ensuring that current facilities remain compliant and accredited to internationally recognized standards

B. guiding them on the development of additional new processing and packing facilities, to be built right in the farming community

C. marketing the local produce to a wider market place and penetrating new markets

Outside the grading and storage facility

QPI Ltd will have an ongoing presence with village leaders, local co-operatives and city committee members.

The local farming community understands the importance of progression and are open to improving their processing facilities. While the facilities that we toured were in excellent condition, clean and operating efficiently, there are some limitations in the extent of additional processing.

The co-operative currently outsource more complex processing and packing to contractors in neighboring regions. It is still far more competitive than processing in many other countries, however they recognize the value of bringing more processing in house for easier direct quality control, and to offer a more complete and more competitive service.

Bulk storage

We are confident that with some minor mentoring, and with our own QC staff working along with the local farmers, we are in a unique position both in terms of price offering, and being direct at the source ourselves. We look forward to widening our co-operation with the good farmers of Liaoning to access raw and processed peanuts, peanut oil, as well as all the peanut by-products.

Peanut size grading

On a side note, the hospitality and warmth of the Liaoning people was very warming, considering that the evening temperatures were down to -15 degrees!

We look forward to our clients visiting the facilities and enjoying the famous “Dong Bei” (North Eastern) hospitality.

See update on QPI Ltd – CPI – FuXin Jia Xin He JV

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On September 8, 2010 the European Parliament’s ENVI Committee (Committee for the Environment, Public Health, and Food Safety) released its final report on changes that it wished to see in the recast of the Directive on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).

Two recommendations that will affect manufacturers are that the WEEE directive should now apply to all electrical and electronic devices that are not expressly excluded. Since the exclusions are only for large immobile plant based systems or large commercial installations, this directive will now cover almost every consumer item and household device on the market today.

The second item that affects us is that the directive requires that all municipalities will endeavor to recoup the costs of separating this waste from normal household waste, managing and disposing of it in the appropriate manner, from the polluters. In this case the polluters are defined as the manufacturers, importers, and retailers, not the end-user. Thus we can see that some sort of duty or fee will be levied on almost all consumer/ household devices in the near future.

Considering the tough markets that we are in at the moment, we must now take into account a possible increase in the costs of goods and what that will mean to volumes and market share in the European Union.

Author M. Charlin