How to choose a ceramic supplier in China

China ‘s Ceramic Production Areas and Their Characteristics

Recently, Adam published an article called”10 things I wish I had known before coming to China!” which I think is very enlightening. It included some cultural conflicts like “Yes means maybe, maybe means no, no means no!”and I agree, sometimes that’s what Chinese do, we are not good at directly saying “No” to the clients, partly because we want to satisfy every client in every possible way, partly because of the culture, and sometimes because we really want you to cooperate with us! So bear in mind of this, if you want your supplier to be completely honest with you about the situation, ask specifically, and ask for direct answers.

The other thing he mentioned is Regions of China. As he wrote:

China is a huge country. Looking at a map of the world, China’s landmass basically covers Western Europe. While manufacturing is concentrated on China’s eastern coastline, for various reasons different products are better bought from different regions. If you’re buying your product in the wrong region, there is a high chance you’re at a price or quality disadvantage.

Generally speaking, the south of China (starting from the bottom of the map of China) around Guangdong and Shenzhen is the region of China that specializes in high tech products.

As you move further north, towards Fujian, Shanghai, Hangzhou, then further north after that, Qingdao, Hebei etc., products generally become ‘bigger’. So as a basic guide, just remember small products in the south, big heavy industrial steel fabrication in the north! 

This opinion happens to collide with our thoughts. The reason we wrote this article is mainly to help you get to know China’s ceramic situation better. As mentioned by Adam, choosing from the right place can help you save a lot of time and energy! And it will be of better quality too (generally speaking)! Of course, other works and research have to be done to find the best suit for you, which we will talk about in the coming articles, please follow if you are in this field, in this article, we are going to talk about the location of different ceramic products in China.

To choose a ceramic supplier in China, there are many aspects to consider, this article we mainly take the locations into consideration, the other aspects will be discussed in the coming articles.

China, with the Capitalized ”C”, means “China”, the big manufacturers of many products in east Asia, “made in China” is a phrase we all familiar with. While the lowercase is translated into ceramics, showing that ceramics in China has a long history. How to choose a ceramic supplier in China is a topic many buyers care about.

Why do they import china from China?

China is the world’s strongest ceramic production power, occupying more than half of the world’s ceramic production. It is also the world’s largest ceramic manufacturing center, ceramic production power ranking the first place of annual output and exports of ceramic products.

Some data

China’s daily ceramics accounted for 70% of the world, furnishings art porcelain accounted for 65% of the world, sanitary ceramics accounted for 50% of global production while building ceramics accounted for global production of 64%.

How will this article help you?

Thousands of foreign buyers coming to China every year to source or purchase ceramic products. However, not quite familiar with China’s geography or ceramic condition in China always make them confused, making the purchase or sourcing ceramic products process confusing and overwhelming.

What’s this article about?

This article will conduct be a brief introduction about China’s major ceramic production places, as well as the features of each ceramic products, hope it would help to provide a reference for world’s ceramic products buyers and importers.

Brief Introduction of production places

As we all know, China has vast land and abundant resources, the types of ceramic products are also very rich.

At present, China’s ceramic industry is mainly located in Chaozhou city ( in Guangdong Province), Foshan(in Guangdong Province), Tangshan( in Hebei Province),  Zibo( in Shandong Province), Jingdezhen(in Jiangxi Province), Liling(in Hunan Province), Dehua(in Fujian Province) and other places.

Among them, Guangdong, Hebei, and Fujian are the main export of ceramics, exports accounted for the China’s 80%(more or less).

The specific locations of these provinces and areas are shown in the below map.

PS: Province is a conception that similar to state as in America.

China’s ceramic industry distribution area map

Places VS Strengths

Here comes the question, what are the strength of each producing area?

Chaozhou

Chaozhou’s ceramic production history can be long traced to the Neolithic Age. Due to its the geographical advantage, which is near the port, Chaozhou became the main base of China’s ceramic exports at very early time.

Modern Chaozhou’ daily ceramic, by combining the use of traditional techniques with advanced machinery and kiln equipment, introducing domestic and foreign advanced raw materials, through scientific preparation, produced all kinds of tableware, including coffee set, tea set, kitchen utensils, etc.,

Because of its delicate, smooth surface, and strong translucent, it has become the choice of the public ceramic.

Among them, ceramics for daily use, ceramics, sanitary ceramics exports each accounted for 20%, 60%, 30% of China. In addition, many foreign hotels ceramic are produced in Chaozhou.

Foshan

Foshan ceramic production has more than 5000 years history, since the 20th century, Foshan introduced the first foreign architectural ceramics production line from Italy, Foshan ceramic industry has entered a large-scale, industrial production stage.

At present, ceramics has developed into one of the main traditional industries in Foshan, its industrial base is strong, and have a large number of highly competitive enterprises. At the same time, Foshan has China’s largest building, sanitary ceramics production base.

Tangshan

Tangshan is the birthplace of bone china in China, China’s first sanitary ceramics, first bone china, first lead-free bone china are all from Tangshan.

Tangshan is one of the five major ceramic producing areas in China, the total output of daily porcelain ranks first in the China. Tangshan has more than 1,000 ceramic enterprises, its household ceramics accounted for 70% of the province, 14% of China.

Decal techniques of Tangshan bone china production main are carved gold, embossed gold, spray color, in-glaze color, etc., formed a unique style of Tangshan ceramics.

Strength

Tangshan bone china products are main daily necessities, building porcelain, sanitary porcelain, industrial physical and chemical porcelain, high-tech porcelain, art porcelain, etc., up to more than 500 varieties.

Complete sets of bone china products are Chinese and Western bone china dinnerware set, tea set, coffee set, cups and saucer set, wine sets, stationery, utensils, cups, dishes, bowls, plates etc.

It also has a large range of art ceramics,( like remote hanging plate, seat plate, porcelain painting), and practical building decoration ceramics with a large tile mural

However comparing to other ceramics, its price is higher, as it has a much more attractive appearance.

Dehua

Dehua is a small village in Fujian, south China, but it has one of China’s major ceramic producing areas, the country’s largest production base of Western porcelain production.

Dehua has more than 1,100 production enterprises, more than 20,000 distributions, 80% of ceramic tea set exports arising from this.

Jingdezhen:

Located in Jiangxi, Jingdezhen is China’s most famous ceramic base, the world recognized porcelain base. With blue and white, pastel, exquisite, color glaze four famous ceramics features, it has been recognized as China’s production base for daily use ceramics.

Jingdezhen’s art ceramic has a high status in China. But compared with other areas, its industrialization is relatively weak.

Liling

Liling located in the east of Hunan province, at the beginning of the 20th century, Liling ceramic craft created the technique of underglaze colored, its features like thin greasy, glaze white, crystal grain moist, easy to wear, durable characteristics made it popular.

Not only did it become the choice of Great Hall of the People, Zhongnanhai, Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, and across the sea, exports of the world five continents, welcomed by the people of all of the world.

In recent years, with the rise of stoneware , ceramic has become a major export forth for the city, with more than 400 ceramic production enterprises, forming a diversified ceramic product system by daily ceramic, art ceramic,special industrial ceramics, gradually developed into a wide range of professional supporting the ceramic production base and export base.

The main products of these ceramic enterprises including ceramics for daily use, special ceramics, architectural ceramics, sanitary ceramics, colored porcelain, red porcelain.

Zibo

Located in Shandong province, Zibo is one of China’s largest ceramic producing areas, its total ceramic production accounted for 54% of the province.

It also has more than 600 ceramic enterprises, the main products are including daily use ceramics, art porcelain, garden ceramics, high-tech ceramics, advanced refractory ceramics, ceramic machinery, ceramics Decorative materials.

Also, most of the new bone china products are produced in this province, as it looks like bone china, but has a relative compelling price. (Check the difference between new bone china and bone china, click here).

Conclusion

Hope this article will provide you some reference when it comes to how to choose a ceramic supplier in China. Basically speaking, choosing a product from producing area can not only ensure the quality of the product(in most of the circumstances) but also you may get a better price, thus providing a greater competitiveness.

This article only introduced an aspect of choosing a ceramic supplier, there are still many other factors you need to consider, we will provide more information about the craft technique, and how to identify a good ceramic supplier as the factors that impact the price, thus provide full information you need to know about choose a ceramic supplier.

Happy hunting!