Analysis Of Industry Value Chains Of The Bamboo Sector In Guangning County Of Guangdong Province

Bamboo sector is one of the pillar sectors of Guangning County, its output valuecontributes to14.3%of the County's gross domestic product and34%of the total income ofthe rural people comes from the output of the sector-related activities. More than80%of thenumber of firms of the sector belongs to the tranditional incense stick industry which ischaracrisctised by small scale, scaterred distribution and out-of-date processing technology.How to carry out restructuring and upgrading of the sector's industries to keep the sector still tobe a pillar one and make it become more productive and competetive, is a pending issue thatthe County authorities have to deal with. To this end, a comprehensive background material ofthe sector development, which is lacking in the County, is urgently needed as adecision-making support. For this reason, we tried to apply a method called "industrial valuechain analysis" to investigate into the sector's current situation through case study of typicalindustries of sector. Results of the study are as follows.1. The bamboo sector in Guangning as a whole consists of the follwing industries:cultivation and management, pulp and paper making, tranditional bamboo products-making,engineered wood-bamboo product production, bamboo-based cultural tourism andbamboo-based annimal farming. The incense stick making dominates the tranditional bambooproducts-making industry.2. The total area of bamboo forests in Guangning is72,000hectare, of which Bambusatextilis McClure accounts for73.2%and Arundinaria amabilis McClure19.0%.61.9%of thetotal bamboo forest area is production forest under extensive management, and mainlydistributed in the central and southern parts of the County. The potential of B. textilis McClurestill needs to be intensively exploited.3. Through synthesizing the survey data, it is found that the output value of incense stickindustry accounts for more than70%of the sector's total output value, making it become aleading industry in the sector. Unexpectedly, the household based processing is the most profitable one in the industry excluding labor costs. This means of processing, however, couldnot fully use the bamboo resources.4. The engineered wood-bamboo product production industry grows stably. The everexisitence of consubstantial competition has graduadly been changed through diversifyingproducts producing.5. The pulp and paper making industry has been less and less relied on the bambooresources in Guangning. The ambitious expansion of cultivation of eucalpt plantations forself-support of raw materials of the industry would probably risk the bamboo sector in thefuture.6. The bamboo-based culture tourism is on the way to rise up and unbalanceddevelopment with lacking of plans for some individual cases and a master plan for the wholeCounty.7. The bamboo-based animal farming industry is emerging with a great promisingpotential for development which needs more supports from the County government.In conclusion, we would suggest that one of the options to upgrade the incense stickindustry is to establish a holding company that involves all the small processing firms andhouseholds in the County. This will greatly reduce the waste of bamboo resources in incensestick production. The County government should muster the courage to make appropriateinterventions to lead those unemployed farmers resulted from this establishment to go back tomanage the bamboo forests to increase the productivity of the forests, thus achieving theupscaling and mordernization of the incense stick industry. Meanwhile, priorities should alsobe given to the formulation of a Master Plan for the development of the bamboo-based tourimin the conduct of adjustment and upgrading of the County's bamboo sector.