Baseball production swings big in Dushan county

"Making a baseball is a labor-intensive process. The quality of baseballs depends more on the people who make them," said the director.

Since the beginning of this year, the company has collected orders for more than 5 million baseballs, with production plans scheduled in the first half.

The factory produced 3.8 million baseballs last year, generating a production value exceeding 27 million yuan.

Runyang's parent company is headquartered in Dongguan, Guangdong province, a manufacturer and exporter of baseballs for about two decades.

Its business model is to outsource rubber, leather wrappings and strings to farmers in the villages. The farmers, after training, are given a sewing machine at home to help them stitch the leather.

The local government in Dushan has issued supportive policies to facilitate the manufacturing businesses, including tax reductions in the first two years, and halving the taxation in the following three years for the plant.

The measures have echoed the provincial policies in developing industries. In January, the provincial government issued policies to cultivate 11 key development centers in the province. Guizhou has planned 500 industrial projects, aiming to attract investments of 280.6 billion yuan.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Runyang factory has been on a rollercoaster ride, said the plant's production director Jiang. For nearly six months in 2020, the factory had not received any orders from overseas markets. To keep the factory running, many workers have been dispatched to re-examine the quality of each baseball. If any minor flaws were found, the baseballs were sent back for further quality repairs. It was a relief when in August, orders from the US returned and the factory resumed production.

The baseball business has been booming also in part as a result of the rising domestic baseball-playing as a niche sport.

By 2019, the baseball-playing population in China was about 41 million, with active players at 21 million, mainly located in first-tier cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, according to the 2019 China Baseball Population White Paper released by Major League Baseball China.

According to the report, adult baseball players are mainly middle-income earners, with 86.9 percent taking a college education and 82.1 percent with a monthly income above 8,000 yuan.