Haier: a microcosm of 20-year Pak-China home appliances cooperation
by Mariam Raheem
ISLAMABAD, May 28 (Gwadar Pro) - In recent years, with the export encouragement policy advocated by the Pakistani government, as well as the entry, management and technology infiltration of Chinese enterprises, it is expected that the scale of Pakistan's home appliance industry will continue to expand in the near future.
As a fore type of collaboration in home appliances between China and Pakistan, Haier has invested in and built one industrial park in Pakistan since 2001. It was completed and put into production in 2002 to produce refrigerators, washing machines and air conditioners. It is Pakistan's first home appliance manufacturing base, and has become a national special economic zone in 2021, continuously leading the development of the local home appliance industry.
“In the five-year strategic plan, Haier Pakistan will transform from high end brand to scenario brand and eco-brand, providing local customers with a completed home appliances solution”Shah Faisal Afridi, President of JW Group told Gwadar Pro in an interview recently.
Promoting Pakistan’s household appliance industrial chain construction
It is learnt that Haier currently has five factories, including refrigerators, deep freezers, air conditioners, washing machines and televisions. Various products have been localized to varying degrees, and the overall degree of localization has increased by 25% till 2021.
The industrial park brought 4,500 people in direct employment, more than 10, 000 people in indirect employment, with a tax contribution of US $80 million in 2020. “Economic contribution is only the basic output of the industrial park construction, and more importantly, the construction has led to the upgrading of the technology, management mode and brand image.” Hu Ganggang, General Manager of Haier Pakistan Industrial Park stated.
According to Hu Ganggang during the construction of the industrial park, Haier Pakistan, established a total quality management system and a “1+1” joint venture management model, making full use of the advantages of both sides to achieve win-win results. At present, this model has been successfully copied by partners of other JVs. With the development of Haier, a number of local suppliers have also developed rapidly, and some of their output value has doubled.
Facilitating technological upgrading of household appliance industry
Over the years, Haier Pakistan has continuously promoted the localization of products, with the development of air conditioners from high energy consumption frequency to low energy consumption frequency conversion, washing machines from traditional double barrel to one-button, non-environmental to environmental refrigerants, and from traditional mechanical to electronic control.
In 2020, Haier and Pakistan’s Ministry of Science and Technology jointly built an air conditioning laboratory to assist Pakistan in establishing an air conditioning energy efficiency standard system, cooperate with the government to guide the development of products in the direction of high energy efficiency and energy conservation, and provide test guarantee and energy efficiency certificates for the implementation of Pakistan's national energy efficiency labels.
“The test report issued by Haier Enthalpy Differential Laboratory accredited by Pakistan National Accreditation Council (PNAC) has been recognized by MRA members in more than 70 countries worldwide and can undertake commissioned sampling tests on the performance of air conditioning products in Pakistan.”Faisal explained.
Smart home appliances to play an increasingly important role
With the popularity of the Internet and people’s pursuit of a higher spiritual life, the Internet of things (IoT) smart products are favored by the market around the world, Pakistan is no exception. The majority of young people have a strong expectation for smart appliances.
In 2018, Haier started the transformation, and launched a series of smart products, including smart refrigerators with large screen, smart air conditioners with WIFI, smart Android TVs, etc. At the same time, it also launched the smart scenarios. In the same year, Haier built Pakistan's first smart home experience store in Lahore, attracting an average of more than 500 consumers a day to visit and purchase.
“IoT home appliances is an iterative trend of product upgrading, which is more in line with the needs of modern consumers. We also increase investment in smart products year by year. We believe that under the guidance of the Haier brand, smart home appliances will play an increasingly important role in the daily lives of Pakistani users.” Hu Ganggang said.
