Graduate's career changed course after he found a talent for selling agricultural hardware in Africa

Majoring in international trade, Frank Gao, since graduation, has been closely involved with selling agricultural tools in Africa.

Early in 2009, Gao had the opportunity to become an intern at Tianjin Machinery Imports & Exports Corp. After graduating, he joined the company and dealt with free on board - transfer of goods - business in the Eastern Africa market.

In 2010, his debut business trip to countries including Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi aroused an interest in Africa and began his career in the region.

Set up in 1954, Tianjin Machinery Imports&Exports Corp is a big-name producer and exporter of rubber, light industry products, papers, industrial hardware tools and agricultural hardware. For more than half a century, the company has been known for its brands of Cock, Diamond and Flying Swallow agricultural tools.

The company started to explore the agricultural market in Uganda in 1995. Over 12 years, the company had gained a lion's share of the market in the country.

In 2012, Gao was assigned to work in Uganda. He had worked there for half a year, getting familiar with the whole process of FOB business for agricultural tools, from banking services, client maintenance, tariff regulations and delivery.

In the past, the FOB business mainly concentrated on dealers, hardware shop owners, in African countries. Gao's job was to collect orders from them and arrange shipments via email or by telephone. Although the operation was quite simple, profits were relatively low.

In an effort to better serve clients and explore the market, the company decided to set up a company in Kenya, the largest agricultural market in East Africa. The decision was made because the company believed the Kenya market was quite buoyant and the country also had the largest port city in East Africa - Mombasa - which was convenient for FOB business.

In August 2013, Gao arrived in Kenya, registered Tianjin Machinery Co Kenya Ltd and became general manager. He aimed to expand the business in the country.

However, things didn't go as smoothly as hoped. The month after he arrived, the terror attack at the Westgate shopping mall in the capital city of Nairobi occurred, bringing difficulties for Gao's work in the country.

"Before December that year, I had to visit the clients on the outskirts of the capital and in remote areas in an effort to build up a client base," Gao says.

His experience in Uganda paid off because Gao knew he needed the first shipment of goods to arrive in December, a time when the impact of the terror attack would have gradually faded.

"In Kenya, the greatest demand for agricultural tools is during the rainy season, which runs from January to April," Gao says. "The tools needed to be available in December so that farmers could plow the land on time."

He arranged shipment of its Cock brand hoes, sickles, shovels, machetes, picks, slashers and axes in time and delivered them to dealers.

There's an old saying, "Well begun is half done." Gao's business in Kenya got off to a good start despite the impact of the terror attack in the first year.

The following year saw the shipment of more than 10 containers of goods, and his business volume doubled in two years, thanks to the high quality of the tools and the trust of local farmers.

Over the past few years, Gao and his team in Kenya have moved in to major cities such as Kisumu, Nakuru and Eldoret to provide services to clients.

Every month, Gao's team takes a weeklong trip to remote areas to find potential grassroots clients. The company's tools can now be found in every corner of Kenya and contribute greatly to the country's agriculture.

"I used to be engaged in international trading, but now I am the general manager of 'domestic trading' in Kenya'," he said.

panzhongming@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 05/19/2017 page28)