Hebei province has given a lot of attention to its brands and their quality and influence in recent years, and the 7th Hebei Brands Festival, which got underway in the city of Xinji, on Oct 19, with the theme"Striving for excellence and realizing dreams", is one example of how it has worked.

The festival is the work of the provincial Development and Reform Commission, the Quality and Technology Supervision Administration, Hebei Daily, and the Brand Strategy Association.

By the end of last year, Hebei had 857 brands from companies that contributed 30 percent of its total added-value output. This year, nearly 700 enterprises have filed brand certification applications, twice the figure for last year. It also has 10 industrial zones that are trying to turn themselves into demonstration zones, with the Tangshan robot zone, Langfang metal-glass furniture zone, and Shijiazhuang raw materials of antibiotics site already approved.