The EconomistJanuary 20th 2018 Business 57F
ANNING out from the sodden delta of
the Yangtze, and southward to the
flanks of the Nanling mountains, over 6m
hectares of emerald bamboo groves—one-
fifth of the world’s reserves—flourish in
China. Giant pandas nibble the softest
shoots. Around 40bn pairs of disposable
chopsticks are made from bamboo twigs
annually in China, for use with everyday
meals. Steel scaffolding is still often
shunned for bamboo on skyscrapers un-
der construction in even the ritziest parts
of Hong Kong. The history of the grass is
colourful, too. Before paper, Chinese wrote
on bamboo slips; they used bamboo tubes
for irrigation, and later stuffed them with
gunpowder to ignite muskets.
Yet for all its importance and abun-
dance bamboo is “China’s forgotten
plant”, says Martin Tam, an expert in Hong
Kong. To demonstrate its potential, he
greets visitors with a can ofbamboo juice,
proffers a bamboo business card, and ges-
tures to a bamboo armchair near his desk.
He says the plant should be “green gold”,
for it is one of the world’s swiftest growers,
gaining up to 1m a day, and can be harvest-
ed in under ten years, half the time it takes
for the softest woods to mature. Its tensile
strength is greater than that of mild steel. It
withstands compression twice as well as
concrete, and needs next to no watering,
pesticides or fertilisers.
But the hard work begins after it is cut.
Though it thrives in steamy, rain-drenched
areas, bamboo products require a lot of
treatment to withstand sunshine and
moisture, as they still contain sugar and
water. A string of lacquers, resins, waxes,
bleaches and preservatives are required to
stave off termites and decay. As a result,
manufacturing has remained labour-in-
tensive, crude and small-scale, says Mr
Tam. Factories nestle in bamboo groves.
Margins are low. Toothpicks, matchsticks,
incense sticks, mats and baskets are still
among the plant’s most common off-
shoots. Selling “poor man’s timber” to Chi-
nese is hard. In Shengzhou, among the
most prolific regions in Zhejiang province
in eastern China, about 95% of bamboo
handicrafts are exported.
But the material’sprospects are improv-
ing. One reason is environmental aware-
ness. Chinese firms account for 90% of the
international export marketfor laminated
bamboo flooring, the appeal of which has
grown as Western consumers go green. In
2016 factories churned out 116m square me-tres of it. The International Bamboo and
Rattan Organisation, an intergovernmen-
tal body based in Beijing, says the renew-
able, low-carbon alternative to plastics
and timber is now “part of China’s envi-
ronmental leadership bid”. Bamboo re-
leases lots of oxygen into the air, swallow-
ing four times as much carbon as some
trees. Since 2012, Chinese companies can
offset their carbon emissions by buying
credits in bamboo plantations.
At a forum last May on President Xi
Jinping’s “Belt and Road” initiative for bet-
ter infrastructure, a private company from
Zhejiang province was invited to display
bamboo strong enough to build storm-
drainage pipesand shock-resistant exteri-
ors for bullet-train carriages. The Chinese
state is giving generous subsidies to farm-
ers. The annual value of the bamboo in-
dustry has grown 500-fold since 1981, to
$32bn; in three years China plans to boost
this to $48bn, and to have 10m employed.Heats shoots and leaves
Technology is also changing things. Bam-
boo is finding its way into a range of new
plywoods and plastics. Bamboo powder,
produced during manufacturing, has
mainly been used to fuel factories. Now it
is being combined with resins to make
new materials. Leftover plasticsrecycled
from air-conditioning and suitcase fac-
tories are mixed with bamboo powder to
make outdoor decking for the likes of Ver-dee, a fashionable bamboo-flooring and
homeware store in Hong Kong.
Taohuajiang, one of a handful of big
companies in the industry, wants to get
more high-tech. Based in Hunan province,
Taohuajiang was listed in June 2016 on the
NEEQ, a Chinese startup exchange. Its net
profit, of 4.6m yuan ($700,000) in 2016,
came mainly from selling bamboo flooring
and beams. Recently it patented a carboni-
sation process, done through successive
heatings, that ensures bamboo cannot cor-
rode. Peng Jian of Taohuajiang is confident
that the “magic grass” could end up replac-
ing steel, timber and plastic (though as yet
his new eco-friendly material is two-and-a-
half times the price of steel, too heavy to
substitute for wood in furniture and can-
not be bent like plastic).
Mr Peng’s bamboo composites have,
however, been used in everything from
railway sleepers to manhole covers. BMW
and Lexus, both carmakers, are among his
traders’ clients, as they consider replacing
plasticand wood in car interiors. A Ger-
man marine-floorings firm wants to apply
his bamboo composites to cruise decks. A
Canadian company in the space industry
is using them in its telescopes.
Otherbits ofthe bamboo industry face
harder times. As scaffolding, it has been
phased out in much of mainland China as
a potential safety and fire hazard. Hong
Kong still lashes together about 5m bam-
boo poles a year at its construction sites.
They are three times quicker to erect than
steel rods and cost a fraction of the price.
But the number of workmen trained on
bamboo is dwindling. AtWLSHoldings,
among the oldest bamboo-scaffolding
firms on the island, losses have grown. The
firm’s problems go deeper than bamboo,
but its fading fortunes capture something.
As one part of the industrywilts, another
looks about to shoot up. 7Bamboo in ChinaWatching grass grow
HONG KONG
Innovative materials made from bamboo are helping a new industry to sproutA bamboo spider rides high