Cheng Chi Ping

In 1940s and 1950s, friends of Cheng’s father came to Hong Kong from Mainland China. Most of them worked in textile industry. They started their business by running a fabric factory. Since textile was a light industry which was easy to start up. Weaving business required a small amount of capital than spinning industry. 1959, Cheng graduated and returned to Hong Kong. The local textile industry was at its boom at that time. More spinners and textile factories were established, with as many as 34 spinners at one time.

Title	Father's friends moved to Hong Kong and many of them started their textile businesses
Date	16/09/2010
Subject	Industry
Duration	1m6s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	AY-CPP-HLT-001

Central Textiles spent a lot of years producing greige fabrics. At its earlier stage, sales were led by buyers' demand. The company's clients would make contact and place order and the company would produce according to the clients' requirements. There were also OEM orders from clients in the US. Nowadays the company is selling its products directly to its clients, providing fabrics to garment factories.

Title	Central Textiles' earlier sales were buyer-centric but the approach has shifted to more direct sales in the recent years
Date	16/09/2010
Subject	Industry
Duration	41s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	AY-CPP-HLT-002

In the earlier days clients' demand on quality was not that high. Central Textiles adopted a mass production system which required a lot of labors. The mobility of textile workers was high. Workers would change their jobs between different factories, and they also took up extra shift outside their normal working hours. In view of shortage of labour, Central Textiles hired refugees from Bangladesh and Vietnam to do non-technical tasks.

Title	Central Textiles hired refugees from Bangladesh and Vietnam to ease its labour shortage
Date	16/09/2010
Subject	Industry
Duration	47s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	AY-CPP-HLT-003

In the beginning Central Spinners employed machines made in Japan. From late1979 onwards, Cheng Chi Ping started to attend international fairs on textile machines, which was every 4 years, to learn about the latest machines in the world. His boss supported him to buy new machines. Afterwards Central Spinners improved its’ machine and production continuously.

Title	In the earlier days Central Textiles had bought latest machines from overseas to improve its production
Date	16/09/2010
Subject	Industry
Duration	1m
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	AY-CPP-HLT-004

The most prosperous period of Central Textiles was when the company was producing elastic yarns. Jeans product was popular in the 1980s. Hong Kong enjoyed the advantage of export quota. Only Central Textiles was able to produce elastic yarn at that time and they could not cope with the demand

Title	It was at its more prosperous when Central Textiles was producing elastic yarn
Date	16/09/2010
Subject	Industry
Duration	44s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	AY-CPP-HLT-005

Central Textiles continuously improved its quality of yarn and researched new fabrics. Central Textiles produced yarn for denim factories. From 1990s onwards it started to export to Japan. Factories in Japan had higher standard towards the yarns. Central Textiles had to constantly improve the quality of its products. Later it could make better yarn than their Japanese counterparts. In a certain period a large amount of yarn was exported to Japan for marking denim.

Title	Central Textiles improved on the quality of its elastic yarns to the point where even the Japanese also ordered it from the company
Date	16/09/2010
Subject	Industry
Duration	1m17s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	AY-CPP-HLT-006

In the early 1990s, Central Textiles started to invest in its factory in mainland China. At that time, there was a state enterprise looking for a business partner in Zhanjiang, with a factory in place for production. Through a close connection, Central Textiles partnered with this state enterprise and moved some old machines from Hong Kong to Zhanjiang. The factory there would produce fabrics that were easier to handle, and production cost was lowered. Cheng Chi Ping reckoned it would be good to start with products that were easier to handle as the working habit was still very different in mainland China than in Hong Kong.

Title	The factory established in mainland China during the early 1990s was only to produce simple products
Date	16/09/2010
Subject	Industry
Duration	2m4s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	AY-CPP-HLT-007