Looking out over her small restaurant in Huizhou city on the north of the Pearl River Delta, known to be the beating heart of China's manufacturing industry, Li Bing can still picture the hustle and bustle of a throng of customers from a nearby factory.
But now, as Li looks up from her broom, she is gr eeted by empty tables, a sight that has been familiar for the last two months, and one that is replicated around the local industrial complex, located in the southern Chinese province of Guandong.
The reason behind the downturn is simple: the closure of Samsung's complex in Huizhou, which until October was the South Korean company's last smartphone factory in China.
Li's restaurant had benefited from the thousands of migrant workers who had lived within reach of the 1.2 million square foot facility. It had provided the lifeblood for many other local businesses for almost three decades.
After Samsung relocated production to Vietnam and India " in large part as a response to the trade war between China and the United States " industry insiders considered China's changing position in the global supply chain. Businesses like Li's were left counting the cost and wondering where to turn next.
"Before the Samsung factory moved, our turnover could reach $8,500 or $9,900 a month. Most guests were employees and suppliers of Samsung. Now we only earn a few hundred yuan a day (because we serve) only two or three tables a night," Li said.
Many of the Samsung employees who left commented on social media that they had left unwillingly, with some sharing photos of the latest smartphones and watches they had received as part of their redundancy packages.
With no new manufacturer to take up the space, at least 60% of the nearby businesses have closed.
"Samsung is the world's leading manufacturing enterprise. (The) Huizhou factory had built an entire ecosystem of supply chains in Guangdong and nearby provinces in the past 20 years," said Liu Kaiming, head of the Institute of Contemporary Observation, which supervises working conditions in hundreds of factories in China.
"At least 100 factories in Guangdong are going to close down. They can't make it without Samsung's Huizhou factory, let alone those small shops and restaurants in the surrounding area."
The impact of the closure stretches as far as the town of Changan in Dongguan city, some 62 miles west of Huizhou. Thousands of migrant workers and executives working at a factory once owned by Janus Intelligent Group, a leading Chinese robotics company, have had their hours significantly reduced.
Some employees have been asked to take a three-month holiday, while others only can work one or two days a week. Samsung had been the company's largest client since the late 2000s.
Last year, Janus reported US$405 million of net losses, a 14.25% year-on-year decline. The company attributed the considerable deficit to Samsung having halted orders from the fourth quarter of 2018.
On the first working day of December, many workers sat idly near the factory.
"We just went to work for four hours this morning and were then told to have a day off and that there was no need to work. The managers said there were not enough production materials," a female worker from Sichuan province said.
Since last month, two-thirds of the factory's workforce of more than 3,000 have been told they do not need to work for a variety of reasons. Most are being asked to only work alternate days.
"We feel the factory is running the strategy so that it does not have to formally lay off staff. Executives take three month holidays with a monthly income of less than $283. The production line workers work one day and then take one or two days off. (This means) we cannot earn a normal income and are forced to leave ourselves," said Liu Fang from Henan province, who has worked at the factory for over five years.
According to local labor laws, workers must work 22 days a month to receive the basic monthly salary of around $255.
"Many of our workers worked for only 15 or 16 days total last month. Due to the insufficient attendance, the factory deducted our basic salary," Liu added.
A few years ago, with a healthy order book from Samsung, the factory employed more than 10,000 workers. Janus plants stood on either side of the road, with the nearby bus stop even named after the company.
"At the peak, the factory rented more than 40 private six- or seven-floor residential buildings nearby as staff dormitories, but now it has been reduced to around 20," Liu said.
Back in Huizhou, the local government has yet to confirm plans for the now abandoned site. Local residents are eager for a replacement to be found soon.
"Local consumer spending has gotten worse and is dying," said Li Hua, a convenience store owner. "Our business has seen at least an 80% drop compared to August. A large number of workers have left since September."
The Huizhou factory started in August 1992, four days before the establishment of diplomatic relations between Beijing and Seoul. The South Korean electronics giant signed a joint venture contract with the local government.
A year later, the factory with a registered capital of US$32 million went into production. Since then, it has produced the latest and most popular consumer electronics, from stereos in the 1990s, MP3 players in the early 2000s and smartphones since 2007.
In its heyday in 2011, when Samsung's smartphone sales were ranked number one in the world, its two factories in Huizhou and Tianjin produced and exported 70.14 million and 55.64 million mobile phones respectively.
According to Huizhou customs data from October, the first month after the Samsung factory closed on October 3, exports from the city's enterprises dropped to $2 billion, a year-on-year decline of 27%.
Li's restaurant and others nearby are under threat until a solution can be found.
"We most hope the local government can introduce a factory with 2,000 to 3,000 workers as soon as possible," said Li. "Only with workers can we have businesses to support locals' livelihoods."
An owner of another nearby restaurant would accept a plant with 1,000 or 2,000 employees, saying that his "business is dying and it can't wait."
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