From made in China to made for China … a soap maker’s journey to the West
Peter Pan used to target US market from China but he’s now setting up a factory in California and looking to tap into middle class spending on mainland
Chinese-American businessman Peter Pan Chengjian used to sell soaps and shampoos made in China to US consumers but is now preparing to do the reverse.
Pan, 60, opened a small factory in Shanghai in 1997 and exported personal-care products based on his own formulas for 17 years. But rising costs on the mainland led him to sell the factory in 2015 and he’s now preparing to open a new one near Los Angeles, California, that will ship US-made shampoos and lotions to China.
His experiences are a reflection of the profound changes seen in the American and Chinese economy in recent years, with China transforming itself from a factory base to a consumer market and the United States, which saw its manufacturing sector hollowed out for decades, beginning to see the repatriation of production, which is a priority for new US President Donald Trump.
Pan was born in Xian, Shaanxi province, and was dispatched by a state-owned company to Los Angeles in the 1980s. He applied for US citizenship in the early 1990s and founded his own brand, Panrosa, in the US.
When he returned to China as a “US merchant” in the late 1990s, he found a country desperate to integrate into world markets and red carpets rolled out for him.
