Established in 1999, Yingliang Group is a prominent corporation known for its wide array of businesses spanning mining, stone materials, real estate, and culture sectors. Over the span of more than 20 years, the group has garnered attention for its high quality and rapid development within the industry, solidifying its position as one of the most preferred stone project service providers worldwide. In this exclusive interview with the leader of this successful journey, Liang Liu, we had an enjoyable conversation delving into the group’s past, achievements, and future aspirations.
Can you tell us about your company, your vision and investments? If anyone still doesn’t know you, we would like to introduce you to the world, first of all, as we start the interview.
Yingliang Group, founded in 1999, is a large-scale comprehensive group developing in high quality and top speed, focusing on mining, stone material, real estate and culture 4 big business sectors. After 20 years hard work, the group has been one of the most preferred and professional stone project service provider in the world.
You are one of the pioneer and visionary companies in natural stone business in China. You have made serious investments in the luxury stone segment. What are the factors that lead you to take this decision as well?
For making all investment decisions, First of all, I think passion is one of the keys for the stone business and stone people. If you love what you are doing for living, you will see and treat it in a very different way. Secondly, your experience and your business philosophy will help you to do the right thing in a right direction. At last, for luxury stone segment specially, I made the decision because I thought this would be the trend for the future. What I see is because what I believe.
As far as we know, you have made quarry investments in different countries besides China, such as Turkey and Brazil. As a Chinese investor, was it difficult to invest in mining outside the country? Can you tell us about these processes, such as differences in understanding, legal differences, etc.?
As an investor for quarry, it is difficult to make decision no matter you are from China or other countries. Definitely, you have to know the local culture, the legal issues and political situation. Besides that, you have to have enough money, good team, local relations and channels for the material selling. At last, you have to calculate how many risks that you can take for this quarry and how will you quit if you are failed to invest to it. All those factors matter for your investments. Right now, in my company, all those procedures are all under control and ongoing by the system and organization, and I will be the one who make the last decision for this.
Is there saturation of imported stone in the Chinese natural stone industry?
Not really. Chinese market is huge and it is still increasing even though it is slowing down a bit now. If the material is good enough, Chinese market is still the best and biggest for all oversea materials.
We observe a contraction in the world conjuncture caused by current wars and tensions. What is your view on the current situation? What kind of future do you see for the natural stone industry?
The world is smaller and smaller and no one can get rid of these incidents in this small world village. Because all those black swan events, the sea transportation, exchange rates, logistics and business traveling were influenced a lot. For example, the sea transportation on red sea line is affected by the regional conflicts and my company also got affected by it. There are lots of containers cannot be loaded at that period.
In the short future, I think more conflicts will happen. There are many uncertainties in 2024. Stone business will be harder as well in this year. But the big company will take more advantages on these conflicts somehow than small companies. So for the small companies, I would like to say that they should do more preparations for the coming year, no matter in the products and cost management.
Do you think ceramics and artificial stones were effective in the shrinkage of the natural stone market? What solutions can natural stone producers produce in order to rise again in the market and stand out from the competition?
The biggest rat race for artificial is not to natural stones but to ceramics and sintered stones, because they are more familiar no matter in price and quality. The natural stone will combine the artificial stones just as one for the product package. In the future, we will see the big difference between the artificial stones and natural stones. They will be a parallel not a substitute.
We observe a further contraction in the China- Turkey natural stone trade every year, following the process that started with Covid. What do you think are the reasons for this? What are your expectations from Turkish manufacturers on behalf of Chinese companies?
There are many reasons for the contraction in China-Turkey natural stone trade, which are many factors for this result. But the Chinese market now is slowing down and the government is doing many future reformations in real estate industry and internet industry. The whole marketing is still not setting down, and we are being through it.
During this period, the best way for Turkish manufacturers is providing more competitive products to China and change the old way of doing business with Chinese companies. If possible, please come to China to update the market info and see the real situation here, which will help the Turkish companies to make better decisions.
+90 532 585 51 95
+90 532 585 51 95