The business negotiation activity for outbound travel in Shandong Province has officially kicked off. The first batch of enterprises visiting Japan and South Korea will be divided into batches according to the plan to connect with new and old customers in South Korea and Japan, striving to sign cooperation agreements or trade contracts. For Blue Sail Medical, which accounted for 90.64% of its overseas revenue in 2021, this is undoubtedly a perfectly tailored visit to meet the needs of the company. "Our company is confident in bringing back more than 10 orders and stable contact customers," said Li Bin, General Manager of the Overseas Marketing Center of the Protection Business Unit of Lanfan Medical Co., Ltd.
The export rate of products is over 90%. In the post epidemic era, the export of enterprises is growing against the trend
Li Bin introduced that the main product of Blue Sail Medical Protection Division is disposable medical gloves: "Our products mainly include PVC gloves, nitrile gloves, natural latex gloves, and TPE gloves, and we are almost the world's first enterprise with the production capacity of these four major products."
At present, over 90% of Lanfan Medical's revenue comes from overseas, with the PVC glove market share of the Protection Division ranking first in the world and the nitrile glove market share ranking among the top five in the world. The two products account for more than 20% of China's similar export products.
"Disposable medical gloves have played a crucial role in the fight against the epidemic, so our production and sales have shown explosive growth in recent years, exceeding 24 billion units in the first three quarters of 2022, a 30% increase compared to the same period last year." Li Bin introduced that the overseas epidemic situation was severe, and the demand and price of disposable medical gloves have surged. However, starting from the second half of last year, with the stabilization of overseas epidemics, the demand for disposable medical gloves has basically stabilized, and the supply-demand contradiction in the post epidemic era has gradually emerged: "Although the sales of our nitrile gloves have doubled this year, and the sales of PVC gloves have increased by more than 50%, due to the decrease in selling price, sales are not as good as sales."
Proactively seeking breakthroughs to enhance the hard power of "going out"
In order to seek a breakthrough in sales revenue, in addition to producing existing order products normally, Lanfan Medical has also focused on technological breakthroughs.
"At present, in the field of nitrile gloves, Malaysian companies can be said to be world leaders. If we want to overtake on curves, we need to take a different approach, such as developing more environmentally friendly nitrile gloves, or developing nitrile gloves that can be used in more special scenarios." Li Bin introduced that the latest diamond patterned nitrile gloves developed by the company now form diamond like patterns on the surface of the gloves to increase the friction of the gloves and meet the needs of different markets and customers. "In addition, in order to achieve higher environmental standards, we have also developed accelerator free nitrile gloves and low zinc gloves through technological breakthroughs while ensuring that our existing performance is not affected."
The samples of these new products have been placed in the luggage by the company's visiting team. "High quality products are the most sincere luggage for our visit, and we believe that our new products can attract more orders," said Li Bin.
Old customers who have never met before: Online communication can develop face-to-face communication after three years
At present, many of Blue Sail Medical's clients have developed during the epidemic period.
"For the past three years, we have only been able to communicate with customers through phone calls, emails, and video conferences at most. However, we have never had face-to-face communication offline. Although we are old customers, we can say that we have never met." Li Bin is full of expectations for the company's visit. "Our purpose is very clear. Firstly, we will visit new and old customers face-to-face, and secondly, we will showcase our new products to customers and seek further cooperation." Therefore, the visiting team of Lanfan Medical has made sufficient preparations, promoting PPTs and promotional videos, and product samples are also essential. This company located in Zibo has also prepared local souvenirs for customers: "This time, we have also prepared Zibo Ceramics as a souvenir." We hope to convey our concern to our customers face-to-face through our coffee and tea cups, and also take this opportunity to sincerely invite customers to visit our company on site to seek deeper development in the future
Li Bin stated that 10-15% of the exported products from the Blue Sail Medical Protection Division are sold to South Korea and Japan. Previously, companies had overcome numerous difficulties and participated in the Malaysia International Rubber Glove Exhibition held in Kuala Lumpur this year and the Germany Dusseldorf International Medical Equipment Exhibition held in Dusseldorf. However, due to various reasons, there were not many Japanese and Korean companies participating in the two exhibitions. At this time, which coincides with the end of the year, it is the time for enterprises to conduct year-end inventory and plan for the new year. Allowing both supply and demand enterprises to communicate face-to-face is undoubtedly a way to successfully gather "time", "geographical advantage", and "human resources" for "grabbing orders".
"The visit organized by the Shandong Provincial Department of Commerce can be said to perfectly match the needs of our company's development, and we are very grateful for the opportunity given to us by the Shandong Department of Commerce for this visit." Li Bin was full of confidence, "Our company is confident in bringing back more than 10 orders and more stable customers, which will help our company's development and contribute our strength to the development of Shandong's foreign trade."
More than 400 enterprises have formed a group to "go global", and the future of Shandong's foreign trade is promising
At present, there are about 50 Shandong enterprises that have visited Japan and South Korea in the same batch as Blue Sail Medical, mainly involving related industries such as chemical, machinery and heavy industry, energy, textiles, handicrafts, and food. According to the plan of the Shandong Provincial Department of Commerce, in addition to the first batch of enterprises going to Japan and South Korea, from mid December 2022 to mid January 2023, companies will also be organized in batches to carry out a series of economic and trade promotion activities in Vietnam, Malaysia, and the European Union. As of now, more than 400 enterprises and nearly 600 people in the province have signed up to participate in the delegation.
Wang Hong, Director of the Foreign Trade Department and Second level Inspector of the Shandong Provincial Department of Commerce, introduced that at the beginning of this year, the Shandong Provincial Department of Commerce formulated the 2022 overseas exhibition market development plan: "Up to now, 130 exhibition projects have been arranged, providing 'one-on-one' negotiation services to more than 6100 participating enterprises, helping enterprises accurately connect with customers, and achieving an intended transaction amount of 1.7 billion yuan. Among them, in the past two months, more than 100 enterprises have accompanied the delegation to participate in exhibitions abroad in Japan, the United States, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, and other countries."
In 2023, the overseas exhibition plan will also focus on exploring key markets. "We will continue to organize and hold the 'Shandong Export Commodity Global Tour' series of exhibitions, further optimize exhibition organization and service models, and support enterprises to expand their markets and seize orders."
