OCBC China and Mengniu, Tianjin.

Once again, we awoke to one of those cold, windly mornings. The weather was further confirmed when we were in the lobby of OCBC China and we saw the forecast for today's weather. Isn't it ironic that hot is at 1 degree?

OCBC China, although considered as a 'big' bank in South-East Asia, holds a pretty small market share in China. It is incredible the amount of local Chinese banks there are here. I found that it was interesting that they only targeted a small segment of their potential market. This is mainly for larger corporations and as a medium for Chinese companies that are interested in investing overseas.

After OCBC China, we went to Mengniu Dairy Group. They were founded in 1999 and was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2004. They mainly manufacture and distribute dairy products in China. It holds the most market share in the dairy segement. They have an array of products ranging from milk, ice cream, milk powder, cheese and such.

The Mengniu factory was huge. Even bigger than Ting Hsin! They had also had a production line but what was interesting, was that how not all the lines were in use. It did give a slight impression that Mengniu did not fully utilize their maximum production capacity. Kiat Lay actually corrected me by saying that the production line at Mengniu will only run when they receive an order due to the short shelf lifespan of their products. However, a tour around their factory really show us that Mengniu really takes care of the quality of their product, like other top brands in their respective fields.


Did you know that throughout the production of Mengniu's milk, no part of the milk is exposed to air outside of the contained production area? There are even special transportation system to move the milk from one building to another within the factory so that the milk does not need unnecessary exposure to foreign particles.

We had to wear shower caps on our shoes before we could enter the factory!