Silver is gold standard for Macao entrepreneur

To better tap the mainland market, Hao founded another company in early 2020, in Macao-Hengqin Youth Entrepreneurship Valley, a startup incubation base in Zhuhai.

The momentum of Hao's business was slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I was in a panic at that time," Hao recalled. His employees could not return to the office because of travel restrictions, and garment factories were closed.

As the mainland brought the pandemic under control and transportation and production gradually resumed by May last year, Hao decided to move the business online to reduce the pandemic's impact on sales and promotion.

The advantage to running the business in Zhuhai is that Guangdong has a complete industrial chain and is a manufacturing powerhouse. One-third of Hao's antibacterial product line is made in Foshan, a major underwear manufacturing base. The proximity of Foshan to Hao's warehouse in Zhuhai allows same-day delivery and cuts transportation costs.

The other two-thirds of the company's products come out of Yiwu, Zhejiang province, another manufacturing hub on the mainland.

"Yiwu has advantages in the seamless weaving process, and factories in Foshan are good at seamlessly laminating layers of fabrics," Hao said.

Other advantages include the services available in the Zhuhai-Macao Cross-Border Industrial Zone. The zone provides tariff-free warehousing for importers. The service comes in handy for Hao because his silver fiber is imported from Australia.

Storing the imported silver fiber in the tariff-free warehouse, Hao is able to take out portions at intervals and pay the import duty in batches. This way, he has better cash flow than if he had to pay the full duty amount for the entire shipment.

In addition, the entrepreneurship valley offers rent subsidies to high-tech startups in their first three years, based on the number of employees they have.

"For every employee recruited, the company gets a rent subsidy for 20 square meters of office space," Hao said.

The valley also helps newly stationed companies attract high-quality talent from other regions by providing low-rent apartments for three years, assisting recruits with bachelor's degrees or above.

"All these measures are critical for us to develop," Hao said, adding that he can also drive back to his home in Taipa, Macao, in 40 minutes.

"The pandemic situation has remained stable in Macao, and cross-border travel between Macao and the mainland has been normalized," he said. So, his routine is to go to Zhuhai for work in the day and drive back to Macao at night.

Hao's company hit 2 million yuan in sales during this year's Double 11 Shopping Festival, a nearly 300 percent increase over the company's first festival shopping campaign in 2020.

The Double 11 event, which takes place in the days leading up to Nov 11, was launched by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba in 2009. It has caught on and continues to be popular.

Hao feels happy because his sales in the promotion surpassed half of last year's total sales, a triumph for the company.

"It took the whole team's efforts to make it happen," he said.

Looking forward, Hao eyes the potential in the economically more advanced regions of the country, such as the Yangtze River Delta and the Greater Bay Area — and especially Macao.

"In our online shop, we did see some consumers from Macao," Hao said, "but their proportion is not as high as that of other regions."

Hao hopes opening physical stores in Macao will help promote his brand in Macao.