Chinese companies finish production of 2018 World Cup mascots
People's Daily Online
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Global manufacturing of the FIFA World Cup 2018 mascots has come to an end, as the last mascots rolled off the production line at a factory in south China’s Guangdong province, May 24. 

The factory was designated to produce mascots by Hangzhou Fude brand management company, the only agency authorized to produce and sell the mascots outside Russia.

Fude quickly found more than 30 factories to produce the mascots on Alibaba’s subsidiary 1688.com. The platform has also helped factories produce mascots based on demand.

“Our factory had been operating nonstop, but this huge order was still beyond our production capacity,” said head of a toy factory in Dongguan, Guangdong. In order to finish the work on time, the factory distributed the task to other branches, also via 1688.com.

Li Hong, chairman of Fude, said the mascots are an outcome of the Internet. The manufacturing of the mascots is also a trial of the “Made in Internet” concept proposed by Alibaba’s founder and chairman Jack Ma.