Foreign companies at China Sport Show: China is transforming from an imitator to an innovator

Cynthia Link is the co-founder of Mastertech, the biggest sports equipment importer in Argentina, and one of the key VIP buyers invited by the organizer to attend China Sport Show. She first visited China Sport Show eight years ago. Over the past eight years, Cynthia has experienced the great changes gone through by China Sport Show, China’s sporting goods industry and China’s sports environment. Her biggest appreciation is that no one at China Sport Show will cast a strange look at her as a female practitioner in the sporting goods industry. China Sport Show gradually becomes a must-have leg in her annual triof the world’s major sports fairs. “China Sport Show is getting bigger withmore types of products with better quality,” said Cynthia. But in its infancy, China’s sporting goods were mostly replicas and their design, technical features and quality had a huge gap with their counterparts of international leading brands. China’s sporting goods left an impression of disrespect of intellectual property rights, cheap price and low quality. But now China’s sporting goods have come a long way in terms of their overall quality, and China Sport Show is a sporting goods fair with huge influence in Asia Pacific and evenin the world.

 

Cynthia also visited sporting goods fairs held in the US, Germany and other countries, but her major suppliers are the exhibitors of China Sport Show. Mastertech imports 40 containers of sporting goods from China every year and China Sport Show is almost the only fair that she has a sourcing plan.

 

As Chinese sporting goods suppliers increasingly pay attention to product design and quality, the result is that the latest products and industry trends of the sporting goods industry are presented at China Sport Show. Cynthia pointed out that Mastertech makes efforts to promote and publicize Chinese sporting goods in Argentina.“We tell many of our Argentine customers that Chinese products have come a long way from the old stereotype oflow price and bad quality. They are not only superior in quality, but also affordable.” she said.

 

As a result of the significant changes gone through by Chinese sporting goods industry over the past few years, it is possible for the industry to reinvent itself fro“made-in- China”to“intelligent-manufacturing-in- China”. During the exhibition, the author also interviewed Australian buyer Dan Rankin and Malaysian buyer Ong Aun Pang who are regular visitors to China Sport Show for many years and they share the same recognition that Cynthia has – China has experienced the fastest growth in sporting goods industry in the world over the past few years and is becoming another powerhouse for world sporting goods industry.

 

 

(Correspondent: Ci Xin)