phenomenon

China is also eating the world of collection toys through a phenomenon: the Pop Mart

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In the toy industry, the ‘Made in China’ label is no longer a stigma. At least, not since brands like Pop Mart has invaded the toy international panorama with accessible, modern products and whose sales are counted by millions. The giant of the hyperestilized dolls has captivated collectors and children from all over the world thanks to social networks, with an intergenerational impact that should be the envy of more “serious” industries. At least, While tariffs do not suppose a problem. What are they? The Pop Mart are the dolls that the company of the same name manufactures and that can be purchased Through its websitein specific stores that are opening (sometimes temporarily) by the main capitals of the world, and even in vending machines also more frequent. They are divided into series in which the same doll is shown in different variants, which makes them highly collectible. The fashion of aesthetics Cute It has made them products that go beyond children’s public, and their usual dissemination in surprise boxes that hide their content has led them to succeed in social networks. A viral impact. Undoubtedly, the ease of social networks to transcend borders has given Pop Mart’s thrust to be known outside China. A quick Pop Mart in Tiktok throws, only with creators of Spanish content, an infinite ristra of unboxings that have the addition that, being in many cases of surprise boxes, the users themselves, With hundreds of thousands of followersthey are the first to be surprised. A clear precedent: Funko Pop. The nature of the dolls partly remembers the Funko Popthe doll brand that have already become mainstream Absolute, all cut by the same aesthetic pattern, and which refer to multitude of franchises and trademarks. The Pop Mart, although they have a certain common iconic character among all, are subdivided into multiple collections and each one has its own aesthetics. Of course, they also surrender to the power of the franchises and have multiple collections dedicated to Disney, Harry Potter, SpongeBob, Marvel, Barbie and a long etcetera. The importance of authors. Pop Mart has another distinctive feature that distinguishes it from today Funko Pop: His support for designers and artists behind some of the doll lines, which gives him an air of exclusivity against more impersonal brands and also connects with another clear precedent of the phenomenon. This is the Art Toys, very expensive vinyl dolls that a couple of decades ago were epitome of modernity. Many more affordable than those, Pop Mart boasts of a designer shield With names like Lang, Ayan Deng, Pucky or Libby Frame. It is not surprising: thanks to one of them, Kasing Lung, has generated its best known property, Labubu. Labubu sweeps. Labubu is a kind of elf with a monkey appearance and a smile that seems out of the hell itself, and has become the property of Pop Mart most selling globally: it is part of a broader collection called The Monsters, and generated 419 million dollars last year for 419 million dollars in benefits for Pop Mart. It is not, that yes, the company’s best known brand in China, where the girl-girl triumphs Molly. This is the creation of a designer there, Kenny Wong, which corroborates the good eye that Pop has had put in the foreground the creators of his icons. Blind origins. The company was founded in 2000 by businessman Wang Ning, 38. In less than fifteen years he has managed to convert Pop Mart into one of the best known companies in China: in 2024 his actions rose 370%. His success is such that in September 2023 he opened his own attraction park in Beijing, Pop Land40 square kilometers. But it is its unstoppable world implementation that is drawing attention. International madness. According to data you handled Time magazine130 of the company’s 530 stores at the end of last year are outside China (the first in Spain It opened in Barcelona). In 2024, its benefits for international sales rose a spectacular 375%, which corroborates the growth that Europe and the United States is having. According to him Company’s own income reportin 2024 it had benefits of 1.8 billion dollars, of which 40% came from outside China. The viral surprise boxes. Part of the secret of Pop Mart is in the surprise boxes (or blind boxes, as the literal translation of Blind Boxes): The search for specific models, with special attention to special dolls, not described in catalogs, and that can leave each seventy and so many boxes, combine with the guarantee of not repeating surprise if you do not want. For example, if you buy a complete collection of six surprise boxes, it is known that those six They won’t have repeated dolls: The viralizable content, the gamification of the search and the commercial hook are as evident as effective. The invasion of Chinese toys. Of course, Pop Mart is not alone in this crazy race to earn the hearts of influencers and collectors. His fiercest competitor is TOP TOYfounded much more recently, in 2020. It is owned by Minisothe Chinese low -cost store chain specialized in consumer products. In 2024, they already had benefits of 134.84 million dollars, their products focus on licensed properties, and already have different 40 IPS dolls. With the project to open a thousand stores worldwide in the coming years, it is clear that a future toy also dominated by Chinese companies awaits us. Header | Choo Yut Shing in Flickr In Xataka | If China wants to dodge US tariffs, Russia can teach you a shortcut: Kyrgyzstan

Ghibli -style images have firing the chatgpt phenomenon again

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You probably remember that moment in the late 2022 in which Chatgpt broke into the scene. An application created by a practically unknown startup allowed, for the first time, to maintain a fluid conversation with an AI. We could ask him to write a story, review a text or explain string theory. At a time when the industry seemed to advance with incremental improvements, without great surprises, Chatgpt’s irruption was an unexpected turn. And yes, he caught everyone with the Guardian. Because, as happens so many times, when a technology catches us, we run in mass towards it. The chatgpt phenomenon was no exception. He only needed five days to reach one million users. A shocking figure if we compare it with other technological giants: Netflix took three and a half yearsTwitter two years, Facebook ten months and Instagram two and a half months. Now, Openai is news again: he has done it again, overcoming his own popularity records. Click to see the original message in x The person in charge of announcing the new milestone was Sam Altman himself. “The launch of Chatgpt 26 months ago was one of the most crazy viral moments I have ever seen, and we added a million users in five days. We just added one million in the last hour,” The OpenAi CEO wrote in a message posted on X on March 31. There are very few services capable of receiving such an avalanche of users in such a short time. One of the closest cases starred in Goal with Threads, Your alternative to Twitter, which added two million users in just two hours. Of course, the context was different: direct integration with Instagram greatly facilitated this mission. But not everything stays in the official data. Analysis signatures such as Tower Sensor also reflect the huge growth of Chatgpt. According to your estimatesapplication downloads increased by 11% last week, while the number of active users grew by 5%, with subscriptions by increasing 6% in the same period. When technology connects with the public It is no secret that artificial intelligence has evolved at high speed in the last two years. However, they are not always the most sophisticated technical advances – Those that seek greater performance, solve complex problems or democratize access to reasoning models – those that manage to connect with the general public. Generally, what moves us is on another plane: nostalgia, art, humor. Or, directly, the memes. And it is precisely where the last of Openai has found his hole in everyday life. Exactly seven days ago, Chatgpt was updated With a new function: an integrated image generator, driven by the multimodal model GPT-4O. One of the many scenes recreated with chatgpt Although GPT-4O was already present in ChatgPT-we met last year-until now he stood out for his skills in text generation and computer vision. But It did not generate images. That has changed with this latest update, which, curiously, is especially good when recreating images in very recognizable styles. In Spain, as in other parts of the world, users soon took advantage of the novelty to unleash creativity. They began to recreate iconic images In the purest Studio Ghibli style, transform vacations in scenes built with Lego pieces or convert real portraits into versions of Muppets or in detailed illustrations Pixel art. But not everything is so idyllic. Fever for the new ability to generate images in ChatgPT has been accompanied by two factors that, although less visible, are not minor. The first has to do with The infrastructure: demand has been so high that OpenAI delayed deployment for free users and impulse use limits. In addition, the question of visual styles is not exempt from controversy. As users experience with recreations inspired by very recognizable creative universes, a debate has been on the table that has been around the development of artificial intelligence: how have these models learn? The answer, although not always transparent, points in an awkward direction. Many of these models, including the one that drives this function in chatgpt, They have trained with large volumes of images available on the network, Many of them protected by copyright. This, once, is a point of tension between technological and authors. Images | Xataka with chatgpt | @MDURBAR | X screen capture In Xataka | How to turn your photo into an action doll with accessories using chatgpt In Xataka | Openai has just lifted the greatest financing round in history: there is a blind faith in the AI ​​despite everything

There are alarmed people because fruits are increasingly sweet. It is a more complicated phenomenon than it appears

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A few years ago, Melbourne Zoo decided that he would stop giving fruits to some of his animals “because they were too sweet for their own good“In recent years, red pandas and primates had gained weight and some even had signs of decay. The reason tells a greater story about our relationship with the fruit. Too much sugar. “The problem is that cultivated fruits have been genetically modified to have a sugar content much greater than its natural ancestral fruits,” Michael Lynch explainedVeterinarian Chief of the Zoo, to the Sydney Morning Herald. It seemed a curiosity without much route, but it wasn’t. The idea that “fruit is not healthy because it has much higher sugar levels than in the old days” It has been circulating for years Online. In fact, come back again and again … But is it? The answer is complicated. If we go to the data (for example, to Central fooddataa database of nutritional analysis of food in the US), we can find some fruits in which that is seen growth. For example, “wild blueberries” would have 6.46% of sugars, while commercial “blueberries” would be at 9.96%. Growth is considerable, yes. What happens is that this effect disappears when, instead of comparing with primitive varieties, we analyze whether the fruit has been raising its amounts of sugars in recent decades. Angela Dowden He reviewed the United Kingdom data since 1946 and found no significant differences in the sugar content of apples, white grapes or strawberries. Giovanni Stanchi. This makes sense. For years, human beings have gone improving Fruits and vegetables to the point that they don’t look at anything. Giovanni Stanchi was an Italian still life of the seventeenth century. At some point between 1645 and 1672, Stanchi painted a picture full of peaches, pears and watermelons. Watermelons that do not look anything like ours. And it’s not that it was anything new. The watermelon was a plant of Africa that for 1600 (via al-Andalus) It was already extremely popular in the orchards throughout Europe. Bodegons give us An unbeatable opportunity To see how the watermelon has changed until today. By 1860, the watermelons They were acquiring an appearance more recognizable. It is not just a matter of appearance. Also of flavor. We have seen it With tomatoes (Although, in this case, Often for worse) and we could see it with almost all fruits and vegetables. For example, Brussels cabbage They are much less bitter That 20 years ago. The point is that, when we talk about sugars in fruits, we will see that growth has a limit. A physical limit. In general, As the botanist James to Wong explainedfruity sugars levels tend to converge in a very similar range because, as with tomatoesplants can not manufacture more sugar without becoming much larger or produced less (and none of that interests us at a commercial level). But there is something else. Let’s go to nutritional data to see it clearly: following Dowden’s data, super sweet “modern” strawberries contain only 4.89% of sugars, while Kiwis have 8.99% and bananas have 12.23%. This gives us an interesting key. As Wong points out, what fitomejoradores do is that “the fruit has a sweeter flavor not increasing sugars, but reducing acid and bitter chemicals that mask their sweetness.” And there is the explanation of what happened with Melbourne’s animals. The problem was not so much the level of fruits sugars (which, Rememberbeing “fiber -packaged fructose” cannot increase blood sugar levels as refined sugars), but were so good that pandas and primates stopped eating other things and their diet was unbalanced. It does not seem a problem that affects us human beings. Hopefully the fruit would gain weight in our diet because that would mean that, on average, the feeding of society would improve. What we are seeing is, in fact, it is just the opposite: the weight in our processed food diet tripled between 1990 and 2010 (from 11% to 31.7%) and that led to the added sugars added will pass from 8.4% of our daily energy intake at 13%. Within our dietary concerns, the sweet fruit is not among the worst problems. Image | Evie Fjord In Xataka | “We looked at the US with condescension and now we are almost the same”: the unstoppable degradation of food in Spain

The eggs are so expensive in the US that a new phenomenon ravages on the border with Mexico: its smuggling

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The egg crisis continues to whip the United States. Also Many other countriesbut the United States is starring in a time when the price of eggs is true Economic thermometer. After an increase of more than 50% year -on -year in January of this year and some forecasts of increases of more than 41% throughout 2025, there are those who are already resorting to something worthy of the dry law or the prohibited products. Because yes, there is something that concerns US border agents as much as drug trafficking: illegal traffic of Mexican eggs. Egg. The United States has lived for years a negative spiral in regards to its eggs. Just a year ago we echoed how US consumers warned that His eggs were increasingly fragilefinding more and more pieces of shell when they broke them. It is the result of a cluster of factors: a Aviar flu that has ended with millions of birds and the need to sacrifice as many millions, as well as the need for keep to their heavier laying chickens more time in activity. The more the chicken, the less eggs and of lower quality it produces, but the farmers are forced to keep them because the consumption wheel cannot stop. And national production is already quite touched. In summary: there are no eggs and the demand is still there, which has caused the Average price From a dozen eggs it would reach $ 4.95 in January and $ 5.90 in February. Eggs smuggling. The worst has not happened: not only is it not expected, as we say, that the situation improves, but that two festivities such as the Jewish Easter of April 12 and the Christian Easter on April 20 are approaching, in which the eggs have a leading role. The shortage is causing restaurants that charge a surcharge if an egg plate is requested and the illegal import of eggs is already a topic of conversation in the country. A case that demonstrates the unreal situation is the one that recounts The Wall Street Journal: In one of the border steps of El Paso, in Texas, the agents stopped a vehicle with almost 30 kilos of methamphetamine, but what really caused their alarms to jump were several egg trays that also went in the vehicle. Because, given this situation, there are already those who are happening Mexican and Canadian eggs within the American border. Booming interceptions. According to the CBP, which is the US Customs and Border Protection office, “eggs interceptions” have increased 36% in this fiscal year. In Texas it has increased by 54%, but in other areas it has doubled. Roger Maier is the spokesman of the CPB in El Paso and does not discover America by stating that “the price difference is the reason: it is approximately one third of what it costs in the United States.” When we talk about the dozen costing $ 5.90 on February, we talked about that, an average. They can find themselves cheaper, but also much more expensive. There are cities in which prices are more than $ 10 per dozen. In Mexico, they are below two dollars, so it is so attractive to put them illegally in the country. I go shopping to Mexico. And here there are two other added problems. There may be anyone who wants to trade with those eggs, but border agents comment that what are being found are many travelers who cross from one country to another with dozens of eggs for personal use and are not aware that they are prohibited products. If they declare the load, there are no problems, but many do not and try to hide the eggs in different ways inside the vehicle. Added difficulty. When they are caught, the eggs are requisitioned and, as with other products, they are taken to incinerators in which they carbonize. To curl the curl, during Easter, Mexicans empty and decorate eggs. They fill them with confetti and other elements and cannot be eaten (there is no food matter there), but in the WSJ article the agents already comment that they will have to make sure that these eggs, called ‘Cascarones‘, they really don’t have any egg inside. National measures. The authorities’ response to this problem is a series of actions to help fight the price escalation. On the one hand, the US Department of Agriculture has allocated 1,000 million dollars that add up to 2,000 million since 2022 to improve biosecurity in farms, help affected farmers and investigate vaccines. On the other hand, more eggs are importing from countries that comply with US sanitary norms. As a short -term solution, they want to import eggs, but it is always key that the sanitary standards are met, since each country has its own. Türkiye, for example, has already begun to export Containers with 15,000 tons of eggs. Search for solutions -legals-. There are also people who do not resort to the smuggling of eggs, but to the search for alternatives so as not to depend on a market that has become a real Russian mountain. One of those solutions is … to rent chickens. For 600 dollars, six months, a company rents you A two chickens kitadvice and what is necessary to maintain them this time. The direct accounts do not come out: if two chickens put 12 eggs a week, there are 312 eggs in those six months, united in 26 dozen. Five dollars the dozen, there are $ 130 if you buy them directly. The problem is no longer the price, but there are establishments They run out of their daily cargo in just a few minutes. There are companies in the US that already rent chickens kits with chicken coop so that they give eggs for six months World problem. There is a lot of talk about the United States, but in other countries the thing is not much better. Spain, and Europe, are examples. The ghost of the aviar flu is there, … Read more

Tonight we have a moon eclipse and with him a phenomenon surrounded by panic and superstitions: the “blood moon”

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An eclipse occurs when an astronomical body blocks another. The effect is usually the total or partial darkening of this second body. However, in some lunar eclipses, the shadow projected by the earth does not completely obscure the satellite but “dye” red. They are blood moons, and this morning we may have the opportunity to see one. Eclipse. This morning A total moon eclipse will occur which will carry the so -called “blood moon”, a darkening and redness of our satellite caused by the transit of the earth between this and the sun. The total eclipse will be visible throughout Latin America and can also be seen from the center and western the Iberian Peninsula and from the Canary Islands. The rest of the Spanish territory can only see an eclipse Penumbral de Luna. The gloom will begin to obscure the moon in Spain Around 5 in the morningPeninsular time (CET), but the partial eclipse will not begin until after 6 in the morning. The eclipse will reach the totality at 07:26 CET, at which time the moon will also be reddened in its path after the earth. Blood moon? This is the phenomenon known as Blood moon and it is common in lunar eclipses. Although it may seem contradictory, this color change is produced by the same phenomenon that gives blue to our heavens. Let’s start with the most basic. The moon lighting is because it reflects sunlight. The light that emanates the sun, although we associate it with yellowish or orange tones is, in reality, white. This target is actually the result of the fact that the sun emits light in a wide range of frequencies in the visible spectrum, whose sum generates white light. This fan of colors is what we can see in the rainbow or when we pass sunlight through a prism. Guilt of the atmosphere. When this white and multicolored light reaches the terrestrial atmosphere, This breaks it down as if it were a prism. The blue light, with a shorter wavelength, tends to spread when crossing with the gases of the atmosphere, bouncing and reaching our perspective as if it arrived from the sky. However, the longest wavelengths, reddish tones, They blur to a lesser extent and continue on their way. This makes the shadow of our planet project a kind of reddish ring around. It is this ring is what gives that copper color to the blood moon. This interaction between the solar rays and the atmosphere of our planet is also responsible for the sunrises and sunsets also becoming red. When the sun rises or puts on, its rays must cross a greater portion of atmosphere. This means that when they reach our environment they have lost dispersed the short wavelengths, that is, the blue tones. This leaves only the most reddish tones of these moments of the day. From superstition to science. If eclipses have always been surrounded by mystery and superstitions, the ominous red -dyed moon did not go unnoticed by our ancestors. Different cultures have developed various superstitions and beliefs related to this phenomenon. Today we know the cause of the unique phenomenon. Although the blood moon may have lost this mysticism, its spectacularity can still be appreciated. Preamble of a solar eclipse. Solar eclipses always come from a lunar eclipse that occurs about two weeks before or after this. The eclipse of this morning is one of these dual eclipses. And is that March 29 A partial solar eclipse will be produced that will be visible in part of the northern hemisphere, including Spain. In Xataka | Prepare for the first total lunar eclipse of the year: the main astronomical events of March 2025 and where they will see Image | NASA Scientific Visualization Studio

If it seemed to us that time was driving crazy, we now have a new phenomenon: “The ghost girl”

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We have spent months Waiting for the arrival of the girl. Countries, agencies and universities have dedicated hours and hours to try to find out how to prepare for what was coming and the truth is that there was not necessary to prepare too much: the girl is being very weak and moderate. Good show of this is that, despite being the great refrigerator of the world, January has been the warmest January of registration. Is it strange? It is not unheard of, of course; But it is not normal. In fact, the NOA “He has expressed his surprise Seeing a strong atmospheric component of the girl without the corresponding colder surface temperature than the average of the tropical Pacific. “ We could say that the phenomenon has been playing with us for weeks. It is as if it were, but without being completely. What will happen to the girl? As Martín León explains“The average of the dynamic IRI model and several models of the Multi-Model set of North America predict an earlier transition to enso-neutral in January-March of 2025”. A priori, the most likely scan is this, but “There is a 41% probability that Emerge Emerge Emerge in this season.” This means that, in aggregate terms, it is expected that “the girls of the girl persist in the short term, with a probable transition to enso-neutral during March-May of 2025 (66% probability).” And then? The international climate community is nervous because we must not forget that the 2023-2024 child was The fifth strongest Since we have records and the fact that the girl is so soft raises many doubts: is it that the Enso is moving towards a structure much warmer What is accustomed to us? It is not clear and is more than a fear than a prediction. But it is clear that what are good news (Few impacts due to a weak girl) It is becoming a source of uncertainty. No one knows if we will end the year in another the child, but the possibility is on the table. Image | NOAA In Xataka | The boy has not yet left and meteorologists are already preparing for the girl: thus influences our climate

This safe box office is based on an editorial phenomenon that has sold four million books

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The roller of the premieres dedicated to the child public does not stop. After the inevitable avalanche of Christmas productions that have given us successes such as’WICKED‘,’Sonic 3‘ either ‘MUFASA‘, It comes almost without giving time to take a breath’ Polyán ‘, the story of a half human police half a dog. Land under the seal of DreamWorks Animation, signers of franchises such as ‘Shrek’, ‘Kung fu panda’ or ‘Trolls’. But this is not a more animation movie. Box office expectations. The first advances of What can be the loss of ‘Polyán‘They maintain expectations under control, because it is clear that the next most or less clear success for the coming weeks is Captain America’s new film, in mid -February. The forecasts point to an amount between 20 and 27 million dollars, which would leave the film in a very good position to recover its modest 40 million dollars of budget, and above all, they align it with ‘Captain underpants: its first movie’ , which raised a similar amount in 2017 in its first weekend and ended up pushing more than 125 million worldwide. POLICAN: ORIGINS. The mention of Captain Folders is not accidental. If at some point you have underestimated this franchise for considering it second next to the giants of child entertainment, think twice: created by Dav Pilkey, the original series of enlightened novels of Captain Colden It has sold 80 million copies worldwide. He has generated the aforementioned film and a Netflix series, but has been stopping since 2016. Reason? Policy took over. A hairy spin-off. At the moment, the success of ‘Policán’ has led him to generate more books than the mother series: he has 13 volumes, the last of this year. Everyone tells in comic format the story of this character that is born as a comic that reads the characters of ‘Captain underpants’. And in fact, success has been such that it has given light, in turn, to its own spin-off, ‘the Chikigato Comic Club’, which already has five volumes. May children sing. If something demonstrates ‘Polyán’ (although, an extra ball nothing negligible, it also seems funny) is the potential of family products, which continue to take the lists of the highest grossing of the year. We talked a few days ago How ‘Bluey’ is the most watched program in streaming of 2024, above series and much more publicized films. ‘Policán’ is a less known product, but it can still boast millions of books sold and a faithful audience that will see it in the cinema, and then repeatedly in streaming. There is nothing strange that films like this continue to produce. The strange thing is that we do not see one of these every week. In Xataka | ‘Bluey’ has become the new ‘Lost’: every internet is theorizing about the meaning of the last episode

Four nations dispute a fruit that smells like rotten eggs. China has made her her gastronomic phenomenon

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Few things are more representative of the tastes of a nation than The ingredients of a pizza. Therefore, when in November we count that a fruit from Southeast Asia (prohibited in some public spaces due to its penetrating smell) I was driving Chinese consumers crazy To the point of adding it to the pizza, Durián acquired another category in the nation’s gastronomy. The demand for the fruit is such that even Four countries fight to send it. Everyone wants fruit. The Durianknown for its penetrating aroma and its peculiar flavor, has ceased to be simply a fruit in China to become A gastronomic and commercial phenomenon. Despite the slowdown in the spending of the Chinese middle class, the demand for this forbidden fruit in some places has grown without brake, promoting record imports, the development of new culinary trends and a fierce competition Among the countries of Southeast Asia to supply the growing Chinese market. The transformation of Durian. As we said, Durián has transcended his exotic fruit status to become a trend in the restoration sector in China, where The concept of “Everything can lead Durian” has resulted in a proliferation of thematic restaurants. Innovation around this product has led to the creation of unusual dishes like Durián’s hamburgers, Hot Pots of chicken with Durián or even barbecues from Durián, who have gained great popularity on social networks. To get an idea, the Douyin, the Chinese version of TiktokHashtags like “Durian Barbecue” and “Durian Buffet” They have accumulated more than 1.24 billion visualizationsreflecting the enthusiasm of Chinese consumers for new gastronomic experiences focused on the controversial fruit. Moreover, a restaurant in Shenzhen recently went viral offering A buffet of more than 200 Durián de Malaysia plates By 199 yuan ($ 27.39) per person, which demonstrates the rise of these culinary concepts. Exponential growth in China. In the last five years, The demand of the nation for Durián has shotreflecting in an increase of more than double in its imports. In 2023, China imported 1.43 billion kilograms of Duriánwith a value of 6.7 billion dollars, a figure that In 2024 it rose to 1.56 billion kilograms and 7 billion dollars. This growth has been promoted by the opening of the market to new suppliers and the enthusiasm of local consumers, who as we said, have incorporated Durián into a wide variety of gastronomic products. Hence one of the clearest symbols of this fever is Durián’s pizza success with cheese in China’s Pizza Hutturned into your best -selling product. Even Yum China’s CEO, Joey Wat, joked in a global forum in New York that Those who do not enjoy this delicacy should simply “leave” the restaurant. The end of the Thai monopoly: fights four. Historically, Thailand dominated the export of fresh Durián to China, representing up to 95% of the market in 2022. However, with the opening of the Chinese market to Vietnam in 2022 already the Philippines in 2023, Dynamics changed dramatically. In 2024, Thailand only represented 52% of Chinese imports, while Vietnam captured 47.2%. In this regard, Philippines and Malaysia, although with minor participations, have also begun to export fresh Durium to China, taking advantage of regulatory flexibility. Causes? The fall in the Thai market share is due to two key factors: the excessive use of agricultural land, which has decreased production, and extreme heat waves, which have affected the quality of the fruit. In contrast, Vietnam has benefited from its geographical proximity with China, which facilitates land transport and reduces logistics costs. Geopolitics of Durián. In the end, Durian is not only a source of income for Southeast Asia farmers, but also a economic diplomacy tool. In fact, China has used the importation of Durián As part of its commercial agreements with neighboring countries. An example of this was the approval, in June 2023, of the importation of the fresh fruit of Malaysia, within the framework of the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. By the end of that year, Malaysia had exported 351 tons of fresh Durián to Chinaconsolidating its presence in a market that previously only accepted its processed or frozen products. Meanwhile, Indonesia, another great producer of Durián, Keep looking for authorization to export fresh fruit directly to China. Currently, you can only sell fruit paste, a lower value product, or send the fruit to Thailand for inspection before exporting it, which reduces its gain margins. Durián “Chino”. And if you wonder why the Chinese nation does not start producing its own fruit if it likes it so much, they have already tried. Given the growth of demand and the high cost of imports, China has tried to grow Durian in its own landspecifically on the tropical island of Hainan. The problem? The results have been discouraging. Recent studies have revealed that Durians grown in Hainan lack some of the essential nutrients present in the native fruits of Southeast Asia, which has generated doubts about its commercial viability. It is the law of nature, the delicate combination of temperature, humidity and soil quality necessary for the cultivation of this fruit seems to be difficult to replicate outside its natural habitat. It is the market, friend. Be that as it may, the unusual Chinese appetite for Durián has transformed the southeast Asian fruit industryconsolidating it as an export product of great value where A hard battle is fought for supplying the giant. A phenomenon that has reconfigured commercial dynamics, weakening the domain of Thailand and opening opportunities for Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia. If you want also, the Durián diplomacy It has proven to be a strategic tool in the commercial relations of the Chinese nation with its neighbors, while attempts to produce it locally face significant challenges. Image | Kalai, مانفی In Xataka | The pizza that triumphs in China does not carry Pepperoni or pineapple: it carries a fruit that smells like rotten eggs and wastewater In Xataka | In addition to Gold and Rare Earth China has an ace … Read more

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