Shantou links Asia-Pacific supply chain as China’s leading toy Industry hub

One in every three plastic toys sold worldwide comes from Shantou, a city in south China's Guangdong Province, where the industry draws on materials, buyers and partners from across the Asia Pacific.

In Chenghai District, a single exhibition hall covering some 38,000 square meters has been certified as the world's largest toy exhibition hall, displaying 354,693 toy models from 7,187 factories.

At peak times, it receives more than 60 groups of foreign buyers a day.

"You’ll find great quality here, and above all, great pricing," said a buyer.

The hall works as a one-stop market, where buyers can browse and select products on site, then connect directly with manufacturers for wholesale orders.

"These are sports toys. They are favored by Japan, the Republic of Korea and European markets. These are for babies. They are popular in Russia and South America," said Cai Chen, deputy general manager of YS Win-Win Business Showroom.

Buyers said the district's reputation brought them there.

"We were told this is the best place to come for toys," said one visitor.

"It's very famous. In all the world, it's the biggest market," said another

Chenghai is home to more than 50,000 toy-related companies employing over 200,000 workers.

Keeppley, one of the world's largest building block manufacturers, produces 5 billion bricks a year, nearly one for every person on Earth.

"Think about one tiny building brick. Before it reaches overseas consumers, it goes through a highly involved process. It starts with market research and understanding what buyers want, which shapes the product concept. Then comes design, mass production and delivery to distributors. The entire value chain is right here in Chenghai," said Li Zhengnan, overseas sales director of Keeppley.

Chenghai's success also depends on its APEC partners. Most plastic toys are made from ABS pellets, and Keeppley sources its supply from a long-term South Korean company.

"They're a mature supplier capable of stable bulk supply, which is critical for our large-scale manufacturing," Li said.

Other materials come from across the region, including rubber from Southeast Asia and zinc from Australia, used in parts such as toy car tires and metal components.

APEC economies account for 40 percent of the world's population, and demand for toys across the region is correspondingly great.

With 21 member economies and diverse consumer needs, Shantou's toy industry serves markets across the region.

"In the first three quarters of this year, Shantou's toy exports to other APEC economies hit 4.35 billion yuan (about 612 million U.S. dollars). They are mainly exported to the United States, Russia and Mexico," said Huang Chunhua, deputy director of the statistics division at Shantou Customs.

Shantou's toys are exported to more than 170 countries and regions, with each shipment resting on industrial collaboration among APEC economies.

Shantou links Asia-Pacific supply chain as China’s leading toy Industry hub

China on Saturday released the top 10 benchmark scenarios for the multi-hazard, alert, zero-gap and universal (MAZU) platform, an AI-driven meteorological early warning solution, at a sideline event of the ninth China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai.

The scenarios were selected from 20 teams shortlisted worldwide. The selection focused on the most critical areas of global meteorological disaster prevention and mitigation and explored pathways to turn digital-intelligence meteorological advances into disaster-prevention capabilities, based on the feasibility of scenario applications, the advancement of AI technology, data security and regulatory compliance, and the replicability of innovation.

The scenarios will leverage the CIIE to engage financial institutions in Shanghai and Chinese companies going global, expand their applications, and support global green and low-carbon development and climate governance.

"We're working with the Shanghai Meteorological Service on the MAZU system. We think that in Jordan, this system will help us make the warnings in exactly time for the public, to save the public from this flash flooding," said Ra'ed Ahmad Subhi Rafid, director of the Jordan Meteorological Department.

"In Malaysia, we still don't have many landslide early warning platforms, so that's why we collaborate with the China counterparts. We collect the data from MAZU, which is the data from a satellite Fengyun and the data from CMA (China Meteorological Administration) and also the data from Beidou for our GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) equipment. This is a good collaboration between Malaysia and MAZU," said Kamarul Hawari Bin Ghazali, a professor at Universiti Malaysia Pahang Al-Sultan Abdullah.

"In the first phase, we plan to install equipment for the port and then for the mine extraction areas, by the end of this year for the ports. We need the MAZU project cover all the country by providing service for all the social economic development sectors, like energy, agriculture, transportation, risk management, disaster management, tourism and so on," said Rene Tato Loua, director general of the National Agency of Meteorology of Guinea.

The MAZU system integrates observation data from China's Fengyun meteorological satellites and domestically developed AI weather forecast models to provide high-resolution, rapidly updated weather monitoring and natural disaster pre-warning services, and to support disaster relief efforts, the CMA said.

Named after Mazu, the traditional Chinese goddess of the sea and protector of sailors, the system has already been deployed in seven countries while supporting cloud-based trials in more than 50 nations. In the years to come, the China-made MAZU system is expected to be applied in 30 countries.

China unveils top 10 MAZU AI early warning scenarios at CIIE