How-to China: Villagers weave better lives

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Residents of a small town in Hebei province are living better lives thanks to the development of a cane chair weaving industry.

In Dongzhangpu town in the Feixiang district of Handan, more than 20,000 villagers are busily engaged in weaving cane chairs. The income makes their lives easier.

The weaving began to supplement farming in 2011. The annual output value of their products reached 240 million yuan ($37.6 million) last year. Each worker makes about 3,000 yuan per month from the chairs.

In the following interview highlights, Bai Xiao, Party chief of the town, shares his knowledge about the development of the industry.

Q: What advantages does Dongzhangpu town have to develop the chair-weaving industry?

Bai Xiao: The chair-weaving industry started in 2011 when two villagers of the town went back from outside cities and started to process cane chairs.

They used to work at furniture factories and became skilled at weaving the chairs. After they came back, they taught some neighbors.

In the beginning, they introduced materials from neighboring Shandong province and distributed them to their neighbors for weaving.

After the chairs were completed, the neighbors would hand them over to the two villagers, who sold them to local furniture factories.

In 2013, they started to sell cane chairs directly to customers. Since then, more and more villagers have used their spare time to weave the chairs, a skill that is easy to learn and has low labor intensity.

Seeing villagers increase their income by weaving chairs, the local government started to support them as they established factories.

Q: How is the industry developing now?

Bai Xiao: There are over 20 factories producing chair supports and 30 factories for weaving. All 34 villages of the town are involved in the industry. About 5,000 sets of the chairs are made per day.

Q: How has the villagers' income changed?

Bai Xiao: A senior worker can weave six or seven cane chairs each day and earn 10 to 20 yuan from each one, depending on size.

Q: Where are the chairs sold?

Bai Xiao:The chairs are very popular because they are made by hand with cane that is warm in winter and cool in summer. They are mainly sold on the Chinese mainland and about 300,000 sets are exported annually to foreign countries, including the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia.