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This article is an exclusive interview between AgroPages and Dennis Lu, Vice Managing Director of Shenzhen Baocheng Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. Starting from a small company with only a few people, Baocheng has grown steadily into a world-renowned brand enterprise serving global farmers. In the article, Dennis Lu will give us a detailed introduction to Baocheng''''s development history, philosophy and its goals.

• Please tell us the background, development history and main business of Shenzhen Baocheng Chemical Industry Co., Ltd (Baocheng for short).

Baocheng was established 16 years ago, starting from scratch with several people and tables. Through our unremitting efforts and steady development, Baocheng evolves into a well-known company in the agrochemical industry mainly targeting to overseas market, with our presence in Southeast Asia, Europe, Middle East, Africa, South America and CIS countries. By insisting on the concept of environmental protection and sustainable development and being customer oriented, Baocheng provides not only high-quality target products, but also technical innovation and customized services to different markets. Based on excellent solutions and after-sales services, Baocheng has won the trust of customers in Baocheng products and the confidence of market in Baocheng brand.

• Please talk about the achievements and operation of Baocheng.

While maintaining our traditional markets such as Southeast Asia, Middle East, Europe and South America, Baocheng is shifting its business focus to Africa and former CIS countries. Baocheng attaches great importance to the registration of products, and now we have nearly 60 registrations. Our market share in West Africa, East Africa and Central Africa is expanding and Baocheng is a well-known brand in these African countries. It is not rare to see customers come to us, holding some products of Baocheng in hands, and request to buy a large quantity of them.

Upgrading from the strategy of cost advantage to differentiation and from a product provider to brand creator, Baocheng has finally transformed into a company with unique characteristics and competitive edges integrating resources and brands.

Parts of Baocheng’s registered products

• What are the fundamental strategies of Baocheng in developing overseas markets? What do you think the advantages of Baocheng in this market mainly come from?

Our strategy is to know the planting situation of local farmers and the use of products from distributors, identify better alternative products, and be prepared for new registrations. From the point of view of overall sales, 95% of our sales are formulation products.

We have three joint-venture formulation plants in China and one plant abroad. We focus to the development of new water-based formulations, such as EW, ME, SC, FSC, SG, WG, and DF.

We have supported and developed a number of small- and medium-sized local distributors with common development ideas in these areas, with them we discussed sales strategies and controlled prices and costs. After years of hard efforts, we successfully promoted our distributors to be local leading companies, and that is a real win-win outcome.

The joint venture formulation plant of Baocheng in Uruguay

• What are the typical challenges you faced in the process of development and market expansion? How did you avoid or solve them?

A few years ago, we found some forged and/or fake products in some major markets, which damaged not only the brand reputation of Baocheng, but also the interests of distributors and farmers. After consultation with distributors, we took some preventive measures, such as anti-counterfeiting labels and patent protection means, which effectively protected the interests of the company, distributors and farmers.

• In 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, how did Baocheng respond to assure the normal operation of logistics, production and business?

The pandemic in 2020 truly has a great impact on the industry. When it was still an epidemic in China at the beginning of this year, we were not impacted, basically, because we had sufficient stocks in advance. Affected by the pandemic, the freight rate has increased a lot. To this end, we tried our best to reduce costs, negotiated with freight forwarders and customers to jointly cope with the increase in logistics costs, and finally secured a normal operation of the company.

• What agricultural fields are Baocheng’s existing products mainly used in? What are the characteristics?

Herbicides take a good part of our sales, followed by insecticides. In recent years, Baocheng has focused on developing differentiated products, such as products with two or three active ingredients combined, and launching new formulations, such as OD and EW. We have made significant progress in some markets.

• What are the countries and regions where you sold your products currently? How about the performance? Do you have any plan to expand to other countries and regions?

We are now operating in Southeast Asia, Europe, Middle East, Africa, South America and CIS countries. We plan to develop more in the African, European and American market in the future.

• What efforts will Baocheng make in terms of core product registration, promotion in key markets and securing a stable production and supply?

In the coming few years, OD, CS, MC-SC and similar formulations will be favored by more markets. Baocheng plans to develop 4-5 new products for core market and be prepared for future registration.

• What is the medium- and long-term plan for the development of the company?

The development goal of Baocheng in the next ten years is continuing to follow the way of differentiated development and create more new formulations. We will adhere to the strategy of close cooperation with distributors to cultivate customers and grow together with them, and make due contributions to the green, healthy and sustainable development of global agriculture.

The sales team of Baocheng Chemical