Tricky switch to lighting a new world

Pan Wenbo's company specializes in lighting fairs. Provided to China Daily

The problem is it is all happening very quickly and it is hard to see ahead clearly as that dimmer switch of fate wildly oscillates. Exciting, perhaps, but there will be casualties. Reuters reported earlier this year that 20 per cent of Chinese LED companies could be forced out of business.

The LED switchover in China is in a rush to catch up with and match advances made in Western countries in replacing traditional lighting and in technology.

The annual Guzhen International Lighting Fair only introduced a special exhibition area for LED lighting products in 2011. That year there was a huge rise in exports of Chinese LED products to Japan, following the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Since then, export volume has been declining.

Guzhen's annual fair now focuses largely on LED applications. During this year's exhibition, which ended on Oct 21, more than 200 LED lighting companies, accounting for almost half of the exhibitors, showed off their latest products.

Lin Yuanchun, an engineering manager of Zhongshan Baolong Lighting Co, says vast demand in the LED market has caused many local traditional lighting manufacturers to shift their business focus.

With about 100 new lighting companies being set up each year in Guzhen, head of the township government, Wei Hongrui, says: "After more than two decades of development, we need to develop a lighting industry with low resources, low energy consumption but high economic value to sustain industrial growth.

"More local lighting companies have entered the LED market since we encouraged an industrial upgrading some years ago."

Wei says holding the annual lighting fair is a crucial part of the township's plans to become a global lighting hub, strongly competitive in marketing, technology and innovation against, or with, the likes of major foreign LED lighting manufacturers, such as Philips, General Electric and Osram.

"We expect the hub to take shape by the end of 2015," Wei says, adding that by then Guzhen aims to realize an annual business turnover of more than 40 billion yuan and hopefully have a couple of big national or international brands operating there, each capable of annual sales volumes above 5 billion yuan.