Weihai's Water Sports Equipment Belt Links Global Market — Paddleboard Exports Surge 39.7% in H1 2026

Summer demand for paddleboarding and surfing has turned Weihai’s water sports equipment manufacturing belt into one of the fastest-growing segments of the city’s outdoor industry, according to Shandong provincial development authorities. The same industrial ecosystem that produces around 60% of the world’s fishing rods is now powering a second export wave in inflatable paddleboards, carbon fibre paddles and hydrofoils.

Weihai Customs data shows the city exported 1.1 billion yuan (approximately $154 million) of water sports products in the first half of 2026, up 20.1% year on year. Paddleboards and surfboards accounted for nearly 70% of that total, with exports of those two categories growing 39.7%. Demand accelerated across the United States, Poland and Russia, each of which grew by more than 30%.

From OEM Workshops to Global Brands

The cluster’s transformation follows a pattern familiar to the fishing tackle industry. Hetong (Weihai) Sports Goods Co., Ltd., which makes inflatable paddleboards for European and American buyers, shipped more than 90,000 units in the first half of 2026 — a 150% increase over the same period last year. Five years ago the company was a small contract-manufacturing workshop; today it sells 12 self-developed brand series alongside its OEM business.

“At the start we chose to do contract manufacturing for others, and after accumulating enough experience we began developing our own customers and our own brand,” said Wang Yongfeng, general manager of Hetong. The company works with 40 to 50 long-term component suppliers located within tens of kilometres of its plant, and new products can move from drawing to sample in a matter of days thanks to the density of local tooling and materials capacity.

Carbon Fibre Suppliers Ride the Wave

The terminal-market boom has flowed upstream to core component makers. Weihai Heliyuan Carbon Fiber Technology Co., Ltd., a company that began in automotive and rail components before entering water sports in 2018, now supplies carbon fibre paddles and hydrofoil wings to paddleboard manufacturers. Deputy general manager Liu Zhiqing said the company began supplying Hetong in 2025, and its water sports capacity roughly tripled or quadrupled in the first half of 2026. Water sports now account for 55% to 60% of the company’s total carbon fibre sales.

The supplier’s trajectory mirrors the wider shift in Weihai’s industrial base: carbon fibre expertise built for fishing rods and blanks is being redeployed into adjacent outdoor categories with higher growth. Heliyuan already appears in the China Fish supplier directory under rods, fishing accessories and aquatic sports, reflecting how the city’s tackle and water sports value chains overlap.

Cross-Border E-Commerce as the Export Engine

Weihai has built a complete ecosystem covering raw material development, mould design, assembly and cross-border sales. Eight of the top ten paddleboard sellers on Amazon’s global marketplace are Weihai companies, according to local officials.

The city is formalising this model through a “cross-border e-commerce plus industry belt” strategy. Zhang Liankai, deputy director of the Weihai Municipal Commerce Bureau, said the city has established a provincial-level cross-border e-commerce workstation for the fishing tackle and outdoor products belt, integrating upstream and downstream producers, and runs more than 20 cross-border training sessions a year to help companies improve their online operations and reach overseas buyers.

For international tackle buyers, the development is a useful signal about Weihai’s broader manufacturing capability. The same factories that deliver rods, reels and accessories with short lead times are applying identical supply-chain discipline to boards, paddles and hydrofoils — and the export infrastructure built around fishing tackle is helping adjacent categories scale quickly.

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