Zhou Dahu is a president of Zhejiang Tiger Lighter Ltd and the Wenzhou Lighter Producers’ Association in China’s Zhejiang Province, Zhou’s legendary journey from homelessness to a multi-millionaire mirrors the socio-economic evolution of China during the last five decades.
Background
Zhou Dahu was born in 1952 into a privileged ‘veteran revolutionist’ family in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province in 1952, Zhou enjoyed a comfortable childhood. However, the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s banished his parents and sent him to the countryside. Zhou subsequently became homeless and wandered across several nearby provinces until the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. His family were cleared of the charges against them and he returned to Wenzhou to work as a postal worker.
Education
Zhou Dahu was educated locally.
Career
During the 1980s, many state-owned businesses started economic development followed by privatization. In 1991, Zhou’s wife was laid off by her soda factory with a severance payment of RMB5000. It was this RMB5000 that turned Zhou’s life around. He invested it in a lighter business, hired a few helpers, turned his home into an assembly line and himself became the salesman. A quick profit convinced him to expand the business into a factory with over 100 employees.
However, by 1993, fierce competition in the lighter business in Wenzhou had depleted Zhou’s profit margin, and he was on the verge of bankruptcy. Things again turned around later that year, when Zhou’s insistence on high quality paid off in the form of a large order from a foreign business. As more contracts were signed, the Zhejiang Tiger Lighter company grew into a large business, producing over 15 million lighters a year, with revenue exceeding RMB200 million (US$28 million). Today, ‘Tiger’ lighters are trademarked and sold in over 80 countries around the world.
Zhou’s prominence in the Wenzhou lighter industry, however, was not derived from his business success. It was his charisma that earned him the role of spokesperson for the industry. On 14 May 2002, the European Federation of Lighter Manufacturers (EFLM) filed an anti-dumping suit against Chinese-made lighters imported to the European Union. A loss would have been a huge blow to the lighter manufacturers of Wenzhou. Zhou led the Wenzhou Lighter Producer’s Association fight-back and eventually won the case in 2003. This was a landmark victory, as it was the first time that Chinese business had won an anti-dumping case filed by European firms since China joined the World Trade Organization.