Developing Environmental Protection Consultancy in Chongqing

After working for several years in the environmental protection sector, Luan Xuecong decided to start up her own business to provide environmental pollution control solutions in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.

A typical woman from the southern city, the 29-year-old is soft-spoken. Every day, she leads her team of 12 to deal with air and water pollution issues for dozens of her long-term clients. However, when she established her company in September 2012, Luan was working all by herself

After graduating from Chongqing Jiaotong University in 2008, Luan landed a job at the Chongqing Environmental Science Research Institute, a government-backed organization that she left three years later.

"It was because of my personality and because I could afford to sit in an office all the day," said Luan when asked why she left.

Luan went to east China's Shandong Province to work with a company providing consultant services in environmental protection and engineering, but a year later, she decided to return to Chongqing.

"Intuitively, I believe Chongqing is the promised land for women to start up a business. It is a city with a number of female entrepreneurs and as an old industry hub, it has attached great importance to environmental protection."

"I feel I can have great opportunities to develop my specialties in this field," she added.

With an initial capital fund of 100,000 yuan (US $16,272) that she saved over the past years, Luan found an office at the South Bank Incubating Park for Micro-Enterprises.

"The park charges little management fee but no rental, and the local government is also quite supportive and helped me apply for incentive policies," Luan said.

In the first half year, Luan worked almost alone, playing boss and employee at the same time: negotiating business, writing reports and doing administrative work.

"My first order was from a machinery manufacturer in Chayuan New District," said Luan. "I learned from a friend that its environmental protection commissioner just resigned and it was working on an environmental protection plan."

After frank and painstaking negotiation, she finally secured her 'very first order.'

She worked overtime on the plan and related reports. "Before, I would complain and feel tired when meeting technical difficulties in drafting such plans, but now I had to embrace every challenge and tackle every problem on my own as I was working for myself," Luan said.

Around the beginning of 2013, several of her friends joined in, and later she recruited several college graduates. With fresh blood coming in, Luan doubled her office size to 80 square meters.

Reaching financial balance, Luan now aims to expand her business to all of southwestern China with her consultant services, future pollution equipment and energy-efficient products.

(Source: cqnews.net/Translated and edited by Women of China)