On a stuffy sunny afternoon in the outskirt of Huaibei, a small town in Anhui province, 56-year-old retired high-school teacher Geng Yuming, in his best suit, stood outside a factory building to greet a group of visitors led by the city's Secretary of Huaibei Committee of the Communist Party Hua Jianhui.

The factory looks like nothing more than a whitewashed bungalow with a flat roof. It houses a few pieces of machinery, manned by a dozen or so workers in blue uniforms.

Geng owed the honor of a secretary's visit not so much for the factory being a showcase of industrial prowess, but rather for the 2008 Patent Technology Recommendation Conference of China (Huaibei), held several miles away in the city's sports stadium.
 
Geng was cited as a shining example of how a humble retiree has successfully transformed himself into a budding entrepreneur by investing his pension in innovative ideas rather than in the stock market or other speculative pursuits. That, the proud secretary noted, was the idea behind the annual conference held for the third time in Huaibei.

At last year's conference, Geng bought a glass fiber reinforced plastic patent from Cui Zhijun, an employee of a little-known company in Guizhou, and started a factory with Cui as chief engineer. "Our technology is comparable to the best in Europe and already a Russian company has shown interest in placing a 30 million yuan order with us," says Geng.

At this year's conference, some 426 budding inventors from 29 provinces have brought 1,100 patented ideas or products. The organizers say that at least 262 items have found interested buyers. These items, costing up to millions of yuan, cover a wide range of industries.

Creative products are booming in China now. The State intellectual property office (SIPO) says patent applications reached 210,000 in 2007, a 20 percent increase year-on-year.

Huaibei ZhongKuang factory, a machine-manufacturing factory that was founded in 1995 and is located in the DuJi economic development zone of Huaibei, is a regular patron of the conference. At the first conference the factory spent 3 million yuan to purchase a winch patent from the China University of Mining and Technology (CUMT). The patent created 70,000,000 yuan in sales revenue for the factory in 2008. At the second conference, a high-tech hydraulic prop patent also took ZhongKuang's fancy, and the factory purchased it.

Compared to the factory's old hydraulic props, the advanced version made twice the profits.

"Several years ago, Huaibei had few high-end manufacturing businesses and our products had always been considered 'low technology' and simply designed," says Zong Ruiqing, deputy director of the DuJi economic development zone conference.

"But now, by using the high-tech patents, our products have yielded high added value and become more competitive. Our market has expanded to Shandong, Shanxi and even overseas," adds Zong.

Besides large-scale machinery and high-tech products, the conference also featured imaginative gizmos and practical inventions.

For example, father-and-son team Wang Jan and Wang Fuquan demonstrated their "magic bun maker" that looked like a giant bright green soda can. The contraption is supposed to save at least two thirds of the energy required to steam buns.

"We have already sold 40 of these to neighboring restaurants," Wang Fuquan, the son, says.

At a nearby booth, husband-and-wife team Li Chuanlin and Li Shufen, from Tianjin. tried to interest potential investors in their son's invention - a water-saving toilet.

"Our son invented it in 2006, and we gave him full support, because this invention is good for our nation and can benefit lots of families by saving precious water resources," says the husband, who works in the catering business. Although his specialty is in food, Li says they are looking for investors to finance the factory they plan to build to produce the eco-toilets.

"It's my second time at the conference," says Wu Yongzhu, an exhibitor from Tianjin. "I'm here not only to show my inventions, but to also study market and technology trends." He held an envelope contained a thank-you note to show his gratitude to the Huaibei government.

(China Daily 05/26/2008 page9)