Before International Children's Day on June 1st, children's toys are entering peak export season. Recently, in the fully automated production workshop of Dongguan Xingxin Plastic Products Co., Ltd., the production equipment is running at full capacity and accelerating operations. Batch after batch of exquisite and adorable plastic toys are coming off the production line in an orderly manner. Soon, they will be exported overseas under the supervision of Fenggang Customs, a branch of Huangpu Customs.
“Since the beginning of this year, the global toy industry’s inventory reduction has nearly ended, and market demand is continually recovering, making toy exports even more robust. From January to April this year, the export value of our plastic toys increased by about 6% year-on-year,” said Huang Haitao, the customs affairs manager of Dongguan Xingxin Plastic Products Co., Ltd.
Toy manufacturing is one of Dongguan’s key specialty industries. It is known that Dongguan’s toy industry started with OEM production, and at its peak, accounted for 30% of global production. Currently, the city has over 4,000 toy production enterprises and nearly 1,500 upstream and downstream supporting enterprises, providing fertile ground for the trendy toy industry. In recent years, many toy companies have ventured into the trendy toy sector, which offers much higher profit margins compared to traditional toys. In 2023, there were 288 large-scale toy manufacturing enterprises in Dongguan, with an output value of 26.217 billion yuan, of which trendy toy production accounted for nearly 20 billion yuan. Dongguan produces a quarter of the world’s anime derivatives and nearly 85% of China's trendy toys. With numerous trendy toy IPs and frequent appearances on the world stage, Dongguan was awarded the title of “China’s Capital of Trendy Toys” in 2023.
Toy exports are mainly conducted through processing trade. Huangpu Customs, based on practical needs, has thoroughly implemented 16 reform measures to promote the high-quality development of processing trade. These measures are in line with the production needs of toy export enterprises, guiding them to participate in reforms such as consumption management and “shortage-surplus intervals,” thereby injecting momentum into their development. Additionally, Huangpu Customs strengthens the collection, assessment, and analysis of foreign technical standards, laws and regulations, regulatory requirements, and foreign trade information. They conduct in-depth research on the impact of foreign technical trade measures and urge enterprises within their jurisdiction to establish comprehensive quality safety control and traceability systems. The customs authority also provides intellectual property protection training through policy briefing sessions and customs-enterprise seminars, continuously enhancing enterprises’ awareness of intellectual property protection and risk prevention, thus helping toy products to safely and smoothly “go global.”
According to statistics, from January to April this year, Huangpu Customs supervised and cleared plastic figurine toys, toy cars, and other products with a total value of 3.131 billion yuan.
“Next, we will continue to thoroughly implement special measures to promote cross-border trade facilitation. We will support toy manufacturing enterprises in expanding into new business forms such as cross-border e-commerce and overseas warehouses, and guide them in opening new export channels for toy products,” said Zhang Wenlei, Deputy Director of Fenggang Customs.
Text by Cao Lijuan; Photo from Dongguan Daily Archives; Edited by Zhang Dongchang
