Focusing on the Water Sports Equipment Sector, Industrial Entrepreneur Builds a Global Foreign Trade Layout

With the continuous development of the water leisure and diving industry, global markets have raised higher requirements for the craftsmanship standards and supply chain flexibility of neoprene protective apparel. In the water sports products industrial cluster of Liaobu, Dongguan, a post-80s industrial entrepreneur has been deeply rooted in this sector and kept improving his domestic and overseas business layout. He is Guo Baokang.

In the early days of his career, Guo Baokang joined a Japanese listed company and gained long-term experience in frontline positions. The systematic management mode and rigorous, standardized working mindset of Japanese enterprises laid a solid management cognition foundation for his subsequent entrepreneurial path. After leaving the company to start his own business, Guo Baokang successively engaged in multiple business sectors including logistics, Chinese restaurants, Western restaurants and cafes, accumulating rich market operation experience. Affected by the pandemic, his offline service projects suffered losses and closed one after another. Later, he tried businesses related to industrial adhesives, and kept looking for sectors with long-term development potential.

In 2015, Guo Baokang and his younger brother Guo Zhun co-founded Dongguan Cookaga Sports Goods Co., Ltd., officially stepping into the water sports products field. Relying on the mature supporting resources of Dongguan's rubber and plastic industry, the enterprise mainly deals in wetsuits, surfing suits, spearfishing suits, rash guards, diving socks, diving boots and other water protective apparel, and carries out business cooperation with water sports retailers, diving clubs and overseas purchasers.

As the global demand for diving equipment OEM keeps expanding, the original operation entity can no longer support diversified customized orders. In 2024, Dongguan Yalisi Sports Goods Co., Ltd. was established, focusing on OEM and ODM customized manufacturing of water sports apparel, improving the full-process system of sample R&D, production sewing and quality control, and expanding production lines to undertake differentiated customized orders at home and abroad.

To open up channels for raw material import and independent export of finished products, and simplify cross-border trade procedures, Dongguan Diving Brothers Sports Goods Co., Ltd. was established in 2026. The enterprise holds formal import and export qualifications, realizing independent import of neoprene raw materials and direct export of finished products, cutting out multiple intermediate links. In the middle of the same year, to adapt to overseas customers' trade settlement habits and expand offshore trade channels, Hong Kong Yalisi Sports Goods Co.,Limited was registered, forming a collaborative operation pattern of multiple domestic production entities matched with overseas trade entities.

In terms of product portfolio, the enterprise can produce wet wetsuits of multiple specifications including 2mm, 3mm, 5mm, 7mm and 10mm, adapting to different scenarios such as snorkeling, freediving, spearfishing, surfing, triathlon and children's water leisure activities in water temperature ranging from 12℃ to 27℃. The raw materials adopt closed-cell neoprene from Japan YAMAMOTO and Taiwan Nanliang, with graded material selection for professional diving and mass leisure market positioning. The process reserves cover 4-needle 6-thread flatlock stitching, GBS glued blind stitching, seamless hot-press lamination, titanium coating processing, external seam sealant coating and other technologies. The titanium coating can reflect human body infrared heat, reduce underwater heat loss and improve warmth retention performance in cold water environments. The external seam sealant coating further seals the gaps and reduces the possibility of cold water penetration. Industry data shows that finished products with standard GBS blind stitching plus external seam sealant have greatly reduced water seepage compared with ordinary flatlock products, which is more suitable for long-time cold water diving needs.

The factory has established a three-level quality control system: thickness sampling inspection of incoming fabrics, patrol inspection of semi-finished products, and water testing sampling inspection of finished products, strictly controlling fabric thickness tolerance, seam strength and sealing performance. Relying on the flexible production scheduling mode, the factory can take both small trial orders and large-volume foreign trade orders at the same time, adjust patterns, color matching and logo design as required, and also provide third-party test reports such as REACH and Proposition 65 to meet the market access requirements of cross-border e-commerce platforms, offline diving stores and international exhibitions.

Guo Baokang believes that water protective equipment is directly related to the safety of underwater activities, and industry competition cannot simply rely on low-price strategies. In the future, the enterprise will continue to iterate the craftsmanship of cold water wetsuits, give full play to the advantages of Dongguan's industrial cluster, rely on multiple domestic and overseas operation entities, continuously improve global supply chain service capabilities, and steadily expand the long-term cooperation market for overseas water sports equipment.