CIXI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Qiaotou Town of Cixi City is one of China's main production hubs for cotton slippers. For a long time, its cotton slipper industry was plagued by severe homogenization. Though the town ranked first nationwide in output of cotton slippers, its profits were slim.
Since 2024, enterprises in Qiaotou Town have teamed up with College of Science and Technology Ningbo University and Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering of Chinese Academy of Sciences to improve quality of the slipper products through technological upgrading and R&D, and to cooperate in brand building, material R&D, and product design.
Currently, the proportion of R&D expenses to operating revenue of 11 shoe enterprises above designated size in Qiaotou Town has risen from 1.31 percent in the same period of last year to 2.05 percent at present, and their R&D spending has kept growing over the past three years. In the first eight months of this year, the output value of the enterprises above designated size in the town's slipper industry climbed by 18.11 percent year on year.
