Foray into figurines fuels Guizhou's rise

Fans of garage kit figures, scale model toys of popular animation characters, often discover that most of them are made in China when they unbox their package.

Now however, they may discover that the figures aren't necessarily being made in Guangdong, a major manufacturing hub ever since reform and opening-up began several decades ago, as some of the province's more labor-intensive industries are beginning to relocate to inland areas.

Inside the workshops of Bijie Mingyue, a company located in Bijie in Guizhou province, workers are busy assembling different parts of a hand-sized garage kit, and painting its components.

"Solving unemployment was a major concern when we went to Guangdong a few years ago. Labor-intensive industries are welcome to settle here in Bijie," said Zhang Heguo, an official from Bijie's Human Resource and Social Security Bureau.

Located in northwestern Guizhou, with a population of 9.5 million, Bijie was a poverty-stricken area. Under the national paired-assistance program between East and West China to alleviate poverty, government departments from Bijie visited Guangzhou in 2020 in the hopes of attracting companies.

Walking around the Bijie Mingyue exhibition room, models of Monkey D Luffy from the manga series One Piece and Detective Conan, and Hanamichi Sakuragi from Slam Dunk can be seen arranged in an orderly fashion.

"With the development of the domestic animation industry, the market for high-end garage kits like ours is growing rapidly," said Wang Dongyang, deputy general manager of Dongguan Mingyue, the parent company of Bijie Mingyue. "Over half of our products are sold on the domestic market, with Japan taking about 40 percent, and Southeast Asia taking 10 percent."

Since 2016, Guangzhou in Guangdong has been paired with Bijie in the fight against poverty, bringing in money, talent, skill, technology and markets. By 2020, over 1.3 billion yuan ($186.88 million) had been invested in industry, education and medical development. The garage kit factory is one of many projects.

Training courses were created to improve the skills of those seeking employment. Since then, some 56,000 people have found jobs locally, and a further 10,000 have found jobs in Guangdong province. As the number of industries grows, Bijie's GDP reached 210 billion yuan last year, a 6.8 percent growth year-on-year.

Recalling his first visit to Bijie in 2020, Wang was amazed by its infrastructure, with high-speed rail and an airport providing easy access. "It was totally different to my impression," he said. The factory has 72 production lines powered by 36 automated machines and its output value between January and April was over 11 million yuan.

Its bestsellers are Hatsune Miku, a virtual diva, the mascot of popular Chinese video-sharing platform Bilibili, and Monkey D Luffy from One Piece.

"Our factory in Guangzhou cannot meet market demand, so we will continue to expand. With the construction of a second-phase factory, another 3,000 employees will be needed," Wang said.

Molding, grinding and polishing, painting and coloring, pad printing, hand-painting, assembly and packaging, it takes up to two months to produce a single kit.

Yang Jian, a 42-year-old Bijie local, returned to the city last April and works as a painter at the factory. He says the work is not difficult as he has worked in toy factories before.

"The factory is about 10 miles from my home, I can take a bus or ride a scooter to work, it's very convenient," he said, adding that he can take his daughter to school and take good care of his parents, and that his salary is almost the same as it was before, about 5,000 yuan a month.

Wang Jin in Guiyang contributed to this story.