With its translucent texture, exquisite patterns, elegant design, and a sound like jade when tapped… In many high-end shopping malls across China, consumers can see ceramic brands like “Whitepeony” and “Yuquan.” However, these aren’t foreign products but sub-brands of a Chinese ceramic enterprise — GC Porcelain. In many American cities, you can easily hear the term “nova,” which also refers to China’s GC Porcelain. In 2014, at the Beijing APEC Summit dinner, two yellow and white “Shengshi Ruyi” enamel dinnerware sets shone brilliantly. In 2015, at the World Internet Conference welcome dinner, the elegant classical enamel dinnerware amazed everyone… Both sets were created by GC Porcelain.
What kind of enterprise is this? Kong Deshuang, Chairman of Jiangsu GC Porcelain Co., Ltd., offers the best interpretation: “70% of the world’s ceramic products are produced in China, yet internationally renowned ceramic brands are all European. Against this background, not only becoming a domestic industry leader but also creating an international first-class high-end ceramic brand is GC Porcelain’ goal.”
Founded in 1958, GC Porcelain is now a national export inspection-free enterprise and key cultural export enterprise. It is also the first drafter of national standards for daily-use ceramics and the main undertaker of the national “12th Five-Year Science and Technology Project — High-quality Daily-use Ceramics.” Their products are sold in over 100 countries and regions, making them currently the largest daily-use ceramic tableware supplier in North America.
Originally a workshop-style small factory producing crude pottery in a mountainous area, adhering to the pursuit of excellence in industrial spirit and craftsmanship, GC Porcelain developed into a major foreign exchange earner in Jiangsu’s ceramic industry in the 1980s. In the 1990s, it emerged as an industry leader and ranked first in comprehensive economic benefits in China’s ceramic industry for over ten consecutive years. Despite such achievements, GC Porcelain maintained a clear understanding and long-term planning for the ceramic industry’s transformation and upgrade and the rise of domestic ceramic brands. For a long time, Chinese ceramic exports mainly focused on the middle and low-end market, with similar products lacking distinctive high-end characteristics, making it difficult to break free from the cycle of price competition. Achieving product differentiation and high-end positioning became key to transforming the economic growth mode and escaping the low-price competition cycle.
Facing crisis, Gaochun began its “second entrepreneurship,” actively transforming and achieving remarkable success. In the second half of 2009, GC Porcelain was the first to emerge from the financial crisis shadow. In 2010, exports to the United States reached $28 million, becoming the world’s largest supplier of reactive glaze tableware to the US. Addressing the dominance of foreign brands in the domestic high-end ceramics market, GC Porcelain began developing bone china, globally recognized as high-end ceramics. In late 2008, their high-end bone china production line started operation, and the “Whitepeony” bone china series was quickly adopted by over 20 state guesthouses, including the Great Hall of the People and Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. At the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, GC Porcelain won the sole ceramic production license for the China Pavilion… After eight years of effort, GC Porcelain successfully broke free from low-price competition with its distinctive, high-end products.
While accelerating international high-end brand development and achieving impressive export results, GC Porcelain began planning to return to traditional characteristics and create independent brands. “Previously, GC Porcelain followed international mainstream design, but now we must continuously strengthen independent design and enrich brand connotation to successfully create our own brand with unique Chinese traditional characteristics,” says Kong Deshuang. Under this vision, GC Porcelain innovated cooperation models and introduced first-class creative design teams. Breaking from the traditional “craftsman-designed ceramic products” model, they established creative bases and brought in four professional design teams, including from the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Additionally, GC Porcelain established a “master cooperation mechanism,” jointly building an artists’ creation base with Jiangsu Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles, providing excellent creative conditions for artists and deeply exploring Chinese traditional culture through ceramic art and calligraphy.
High-end quality is the foundation of premium ceramic brands, and high-tech ceramics represent the industry’s new frontier and future. With an innovative attitude, GC Porcelain dedicates itself to developing high-end quality ceramics, annually launching new glazes and designs with high technical content, high added value, and green environmental characteristics. Currently, GC Porcelain holds over 200 patents for inventions, utility models, and designs. They continuously optimize material ratios to create bone china superior to traditional versions and promise consumers to use the strictest standard—the California standard—as their internal control standard, ensuring consumer health safety for 150 years of continuous use.
Unique style, creative design, inherited traditional cultural taste, and strict internal control standards have made GC Porcelain increasingly well-known and their products increasingly recognized. In recent years, GC Porcelain has frequently powered high-end events and promoted their brand, strategically cooperating with the Nanjing Asian Youth Games, Shanghai ASEM Summit, and Nanjing Youth Olympic Games, continuously improving brand reputation. In 2014, after extensive evaluation, the Beijing APEC Organizing Committee chose GC Porcelain as the exclusive customized dinnerware provider for the APEC Summit banquet. GC Porcelain lived up to expectations, successfully designing the “National Yellow” series for the main table and “Pearl White” series for guest tables, receiving high praise from international guests. At the 2015 World Internet Conference, GC Porcelain’ designed “Blue and White Elements” enamel dinnerware once again amazed everyone… The multiple selections of GC Porcelain’ independently developed and designed products for state banquets announced China’s rise in ceramics to the world, ending the history of Chinese high-end hotels and state banquets using foreign daily-use ceramics.
