Song Guoqiang

　　"I, Old Song, have spent my whole life doing practical things for society. From luggage hardware to building hardware, I have already made my own contribution to China's building materials industry. In the future, I will devote 50% of my energy to the fields of organic agriculture and ecological agriculture."

　　"Have you ever eaten real organic vegetables? Whether they are truly organic vegetables requires speaking with one's conscience." As he said this, he took a deep drag on his cigarette and pushed his glasses up.

　　The speaker was not tall, wore a plaid shirt and glasses, and spoke and behaved gently and elegantly, not at all like an experienced "farmer," but rather like a scientific researcher.

　　He is indeed a scientific researcher. When China's high-end door and window hardware relied entirely on imports, it was he and his company's R&D team who opened the era of China's independent research, development, and production of high-end door and window hardware. His current identity is chairman of Shandong Guoqiang Hardware Products Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Guoqiang Group), and he can be called the father of China's door and window hardware.

　　He is Song Guoqiang.

　　One day in early August, in an office decorated in an antique, purely Chinese style, "Hardware King" Song Guoqiang told this reporter about his 25-year entrepreneurial history and his experience in ecological agriculture.

　　Feed horses, chop wood, travel the world. No! Grow vegetables, raise chickens, farm tourism. Song Guoqiang is doing something completely unrelated to hardware——developing organic ecological agriculture.

　　From "carpenter" to "blacksmith," and then to "farmer," each of Song Guoqiang's role transitions is thought-provoking.

　　In fact, as early as many years ago, Song Guoqiang had already begun trying to walk on multiple legs, plunging into the R&D and experimentation of organic agriculture and ecological agriculture. Today, at the junction of Hujia Subdistrict Office and Zhuji Town in Leling City, Shandong Province, an organic ecological vegetable base covering nearly 2,000 mu is continuously exporting truly green ecological vegetables to various places.

　　Not far away, inside China's largest hardware manufacturing base——the Guoqiang Group Hardware Industrial Park——there is also a lively and busy scene.

　　Multiple Role Transitions

　　June 4 this year was of special significance to Song Guoqiang.

　　On that day, the inauguration ceremony of the Guoqiang Group Hardware Industrial Park and the awarding ceremony for the China Building Hardware Industry Base were held in Leling. At the same time, Guoqiang Group welcomed its 25th birthday.

　　"Guoqiang Group's products include door and window hardware, luggage hardware, home appliance hardware, superconducting solar energy, and intelligent electric heating floor heating systems, with more than 3,000 varieties in 10 major series. It is one of China's earlier manufacturers of building door and window hardware. Products are exported to Europe, America, Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and China's Hong Kong and Macao regions, and it has become China's largest high-end hardware manufacturing base." When saying these words, Song Guoqiang was incomparably proud.

　　Recalling the past 25 years, Song Guoqiang said frankly that his various role transitions were needed for the survival and development of the enterprise, but more importantly, they were about sizing up the situation in a complex environment and finding another path.

　　When others were busy panning for gold, he was always selling water.

　　"Leling neither produces timber nor is close to major transportation routes, so producing wooden furniture has many inherent shortcomings. Wooden furniture has low technical content, the industry entry threshold is not high, and the competitive situation is very severe." As soon as Song Guoqiang took office, he prepared for danger in times of peace and had the enterprise transform to produce fiberboard, an upstream product for the furniture industry. In this way, the Leling Woodware Factory quickly completed its primitive capital accumulation.

　　The 1990 Leling International Golden Silk Jujube Festival was an important turning point in Song Guoqiang's life. A Hong Kong businessman attending the festival suggested that Song Guoqiang produce high-end luggage for him, but after some investigation, Song Guoqiang resolutely decided to give up producing luggage and began researching and developing high-end luggage hardware accessories, which at the time were largely imported in China.

　　This accidental opportunity quickly turned Song Guoqiang from a "carpenter" into a "blacksmith." In 1997, a German-invested plastic-steel door and window company in Shandong approached Song Guoqiang, hoping that Guoqiang Group could produce hardware accessories for high-end plastic-steel doors and windows for export. Soon, Guoqiang Group solved various technical difficulties and began competing in the high-end door and window hardware field with well-known companies such as those from Germany.

　　"I've been too busy recently. Once this period is over, I want to launch an assault on foreign brands, and I believe that when these foreign brands compete with our products, they will definitely lose!" Song Guoqiang said.

　　In his view, to produce such a set of door and window hardware, a foreign brand's production cost is about 150 yuan, while Guoqiang Group's is only about 120 yuan, so foreign brands are destined to have no market.

　　"I dare not imagine how many more years Chinese people would have had to use such extremely expensive foreign-brand door and window hardware if Guoqiang Group had not entered the door and window hardware field back then. The fact that we can now use such low-priced and high-quality hardware products is the contribution of Guoqiang people." Song Guoqiang said very confidently while demonstrating how the door and window hardware in his office closes.

　　When talking about once again transitioning to the role of "farmer," Song Guoqiang said that China's food quality and safety problems have been fully exposed, and an entrepreneur with a sense of social responsibility should think about this issue. I have found the best entry point, which is to develop organic agriculture and ecological agriculture. While making contributions to China's building materials industry, I should also contribute some of my meager strength to matters on the Chinese dining table.