What’s the difference between a Beijing duck?

I was out of Guangdong Province last next week making some factory visits on behalf of clients. I was in Jiangsu, Anhui, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Fujian visiting with about 10 different manufacturers over a 7 day period. So this is a good time to make some general observations between the different locals and cultures.Five observed differences between North/South China.1. Demographics of the labor force. The labor force is much older in the North than in the South. It was obvious in each and every factory that we went to that Guangdong has gotten the lion’s share of the youth—mostly 18-25 year old women. My unscientific guesstimate is that the average age difference is 10 years.When I mentioned this age difference to one factory owner he told me “yes, our workers are older, but they are also more experienced.” At least I’m not as concerned about child labor.I found that this age difference was also apparent in Fujian Province too. Hardly a “Northern” province, Fujian lies just to the north of Guangdong and makes me think that this demographic shift may be Guangdong specific. I know that other provinces where I’ve worked/visited also have an older demographic: Hubei, Shandong, Chongqing/Sichuan, Guizhou, Jianxi.2. % of State owned factories. The percentage of factories that I visited that were state owned goes up dramatically as I went further north. We worked with one factory that owned more than 150 other local factories including a tradeshow center, a couple of very large/modern hotels and numerous KTV bars.Some of the most interesting aspects of working with these state owned factories includes their network of associated companies. Everything that we’ve ever produced they have someone that is currently manufacturing the same types of things. Another interesting aspect is the tax/price situation. State owned factories typically own their own land or have special tax incentives that allow them to offer lower prices.3. Size vs. experience of factories. The difference in the North (Yanzi river) and South (Pearl river), in very broad general terms is that Shenzhen started in the manufacturing business in 1980 and Shanghai/Zhejiang area didn’t really get into the act until the middle ‘90’s. That doesn’t mean that the Yangzi river delta is 15 years behind, in fact the fact that they weren’t the earliest entrants means that they have some of the more modern factories in the country. In fact, for very large factories I believe that the North is ahead of the South. For mid-sized production capacity though, the South is the place to find more options.The fist time I went to visit factories in Zhejiang I was turned off by the lack of mid-range options. It seemed to me that there were either huge multi-national JV’s or small Chinese start ups. Really nothing to compete with Guangzhou/Dongguang/Shenzhen. But all that is changing—and very quickly too. There still seems to be more mid-sized options in the South, but the newer factories are in the North.4. Manufacturing Costs are location dependant—this is East/West more than North/South. No secret here—labor costs are always cheaper the farther you get inland—or even much farther south, like Vietnam. Factories are going up in Guizhou, Guangxi, Hunan, Hebei and Henan. Land costs, incentives to move inland, labor costs, and other advantages are combining to make inland China more and more attractive. Shenzhen’s advantage in years of experience becomes a disadvantage when you factor in the cost of a more experience labor force, limited land and even some taxes are more expensive than inland.5. Language. Cantonese/Mandarin in the South and English/Mandarin in the North. It’s always an interesting experience to go to and factory for qualification/inspection and speak English the entire time. Work in Guangdong, for me, is in either Mandarin or Cantonese. I rarely if ever speak English at factories down here. But on this trip every factory in Jiansu, Anhui and Zhejiang had very competent English speaking staff. Only in Xianmen did I speak Mandarin again.