Liu Minxia

    mllmx@msn.com

    SITTING in his vacant camera shop on the first floor of the Wanshang Computer City, an idle Xiao Xiongbin said he misses the days when Huaqiangbei Road in front of his store was lined with huge palm trees and teeming with people.

    “I can’t wait to see the street bustling again, but to tell the truth I have no idea whether our business will boom again or not,” said Xiao, who has been doing business in the Huaqiangbei area for 17 years and owns several properties on the street, now vastly a construction site.

    Closed up since February 2013 for construction on Metro Line 7, Huaqiangbei Road, once dubbed “China’s No. 1 Electronics Street,” has been struggling to retain its crown.

    The road closures, compounded by the macro-trend of rising e-commerce, have forced many businesses on the world-famous electronics market to close, resulting in double-digit vacancy rates and sliding rent for shops at the Futian District area.

    A ray of hope for Huaqiangbei businessmen like Xiao is that the street, according to Liu Rengen, deputy director and spokesperson of the Huaqiangbei Subdistrict Office, is expected to reopen in late October as Metro Line 7 will start trial operation Oct. 28.

    “We managed to survive the past three years when sometimes we didn’t even receive a single buyer a day,” said Xiao. “Many of us are suffering losses, but we don’t give up because of the hope that things will become better when the road reopens.”

    Many Huaqiangbei business owners who talked to Shenzhen Daily yesterday, however, showed doubt that the road opening will be a quick fix to the problems facing them.

    “The business has already gone as people’s buying habits have already changed,” said Wang Huijie, who runs a small electronics maintenance shop on the first floor of SEG Technology Park. “Finished electronic products sellers have taken the hardest hits, and it’s already too late for them to regain the customer traffic as when it attracted an average of 700,000 customers a day.”

    Wang said he had hired four people and received more than 20 customers a day three years ago, but now only he works at the shop by himself, and merely two or three customers visit his shop every day.

    “It’s the global economic slowdown that has sagged our business,” said Bai Bin, who runs an electronics components shop in the New Huaqiang Square. “Our main buyers are factories, instead of individuals. The road opening has little effect on us.”

    Photographic apparatus seller Xiao also showed worries that buyers will choose to buy online instead of visiting his shop because Huaqiangbei Road will become a pedestrian-only street and it will be inconvenient for buyers to move their large-size purchases back home.

    “It’s difficult for Huaqiangbei to regain the glorious days as in years ago when it was the only center in Shenzhen,” said Xiao. “Now each district has a business center, and people who don’t buy online buy nearby. My personal research found that a Meizu store in Longgang’s center sells 500 mobile phones a day, while the Meizu store here sells less than 10.” (Continued on P3)

    But to Cai Zhuanwan, Party secretary of Huaqiangbei Subdistrict office, Huaqiangbei is just experiencing a transitional period, and will retain its glory and spirit in innovation. “Huaqiangbei businessmen are like a horde of wild animals who believe in the survival of the fittest. They have an acute sense of demand as well as the courage to constantly challenge themselves,” said Cai, whose first name literally means making a turn, or a turning point.

    “Innovation has been their soul. Even before the catch word ‘maker’ appeared, they were doing the things makers do,” said the office’s spokesperson Liu, who cited the small office where Ma Huateng started Tencent Technologies, which is located right opposite to his office building. “Nobody knows if another Tencent is growing here.”

    To keep Huaqiangbei’s innovation engine running, Cai’s office has been encouraging makers from home and abroad to open laboratories in the area. Several makers’ centers, including a 5,000-square-meter space in the New Huaqiang Square and 1,400 square meters of offices in SEG Square, have been set up in the past year.

    Huaqiangbei, a 960-meter stretch of large malls and shops, has its advantages, according to Liu and several businessmen. “There are more than 40,000 sellers in 27 large-scale specialized electronics hypermarkets and more than 400 logistics companies on the street,” said Liu. “Many makers choose to start their workshops here because they can find almost anything they want.”

    Yin Hongsheng, chairman of Shenzhen Kingone Electronics Technology Co. who started his company in Huaqiangbei in 2012, said Huaqiangbei is more than the brick-and-mortar shops. “Behind Huaqiangbei, it’s an integrated and strong industry chain. As long as you have a blueprint of a future product, here you can find the complete supply chain you need to produce it.”

    “Huaqiangbei is the world’s largest components market and it’s easy to source parts,” said Robert Ottar Mevatne, CEO of Trouble Maker, which opened about two weeks ago at the Huaqiangbei International Makers’ Center.

    Hans Stam, a maker expert from the Netherlands who has spent seven years working in Huaqiangbei, worries that Shenzhen’s skyrocketing property prices will force the components sellers as well as the makers to move to less expensive places like Dongguan.

    “When they cut down the palm trees three years ago, I knew it would take a long time for Huaqiangbei to grow again,” said camera shop owner Xiao. “I watched those trees growing tall, and when the construction started I thought they would taket them out with the roots and plant them somewhere else, but they chopped them. It takes time for a tree to grow as well as a business.”