📋 Article outline
After many months of online discussions, top representatives from China's leading creative production studio officially arrived in Saigon, realizing the strategic cooperation agreement with Lĩnh Nam Cosmos
Ho Chi Minh City, May 2026. In a solemn and warm atmosphere at the Lĩnh Nam Cosmos representative office, the senior leadership delegation of Guangdong Dingyi Trendy Toy Culture & Creative Co., Ltd (https://dywh.cn/), along with representatives of Hong Kong Dingyi Creative Culture, held their first in-person meeting with the leadership of Lĩnh Nam Cosmos after many months of exchanges through online channels.
This special working trip — with Ho Chi Minh City as the first destination in Dingyi's "Southward" ASEAN journey — not only demonstrates the special importance that China's leading creative production studio places on the Vietnamese market but also marks the transition from "agreements at a virtual table" to "commitments in action on Vietnamese soil" between the two parties.
From digital connection to a real handshake
The relationship between Lĩnh Nam Cosmos and Dingyi Culture has been cultivated through many online working sessions over the past months. From initial capability presentations, the two parties have exchanged technical documents, capability dossiers, reference project portfolios, and most importantly — shared the vision of the cultural industry's role in a nation's development.
The more they exchanged, the more both parties recognized a rare alignment: one side has world-class production capability seeking a market with cultural depth; the other has a vision of industrializing Vietnamese heritage seeking partners to realize ideas at international standards. When all preconditions were ripe, Dingyi's leadership decided to personally come to Ho Chi Minh City — a highly symbolic decision in Chinese business culture, reflecting deep sincerity and long-term commitment.
Opening the meeting, the Lĩnh Nam Cosmos representative shared:
"The fact that Dingyi Culture's leadership has traveled thousands of kilometers to Ho Chi Minh City today is the clearest proof of the seriousness and long-term vision of both parties. We do not see each other as buyer-seller, but as companions co-creating a new cultural industry for Vietnam — where traditional heritage is revived in contemporary form and reaches the world."
Dingyi – The master craftsman behind global "mega IPs"
Dingyi Culture, founded in 2009 in Dongguan, Guangdong — known as the "world's factory" — is currently the official production partner of top names in the global entertainment industry: Marvel, DC, Walt Disney, Warner Bros., Bandai Japan. They are the ones behind the scenes creating 1:1 scale works for blockbuster films like Star Wars, Iron Man, Avengers, King Kong, Batman, as well as the Gundam, One Piece, and Saint Seiya exhibition series at Hong Kong Times Square and Harbour City.
Notably, in the Chinese market, Dingyi is the production partner behind most leading designer toy brands such as Pop Mart, TOPTOY, TOYCITY, X11, 52TOYS — brands that are shaping a multi-billion-dollar art toy industry.
Two recent "pinnacle" projects of Dingyi have built its international reputation:
- 27-meter-tall World Cup Qatar 2022 logo statue – completed in only 33 days, generating global media coverage
- Pair of 19-meter-tall interactive mechanical statues "Loke - Wuliyatou" – integrating sound-light-electric technology, recorded in the Guinness World Records Greater Shanghai
With a 40,000 m² factory system in Dongguan expanding to the 4-hectare "Dingyi Dream Workshop," a team of 200 specialists (1/3 senior engineers), 27 invention and utility patents, plus National High-Tech Enterprise, ISO 9001, ISO 14001 certifications — Dingyi brings to Vietnam the full capabilities of a world-class creative production studio.
Four pillars of strategic cooperation in Vietnam
After almost a full day of serious work in Ho Chi Minh City, the two parties agreed in principle on four pillars of cooperation that will shape Dingyi's long-term strategy in Vietnam:
Pillar one – Urban Art & Public Sculpture. Dingyi will become the main production partner for the system of sculpture works, mechanical-sound-light installations at large scales in key projects of Linh Nam Group and its partner network. Particularly the eco-cultural-tourism complexes under the Forest Economy and Marine Economy pillars, urban public spaces, and cultural monument clusters in major cities.
Pillar two – Interactive Heritage Experience. The two parties jointly design and produce 1:1 scale model systems, props, and historical figures for the Bach Gia Heritage Museum — Lĩnh Nam Cosmos's large-scale private museum project — along with the Vietnamese family lineage museum network. Dingyi will apply the very technologies they deployed for Marvel and DC at Hong Kong's leading shopping centers.
Pillar three – Designer Toy Industry "Made in Vietnam". This is the pillar with the greatest potential considering future market scale. Dingyi commits to sharing supply chain operations experience from design – prototyping – mass production that they have done for Pop Mart and China's top brands. The goal is to work with Lĩnh Nam Cosmos to build Vietnamese cultural character IPs — from legends, history, national martial arts, to contemporary imagery — at international standards and ready for the global market.
Pillar four – Training and technology transfer. Both parties are studying the model of an R&D Center and joint production workshop in Vietnam, leveraging Vietnamese labor advantages and Dingyi's technical capabilities. The further vision is to make Vietnam the creative production hub of ASEAN — not just a consumer market, but also a production destination.
Sincere words from the distant guest
The Dingyi Culture representative could not hide their emotion when sharing their impressions of the trip:
"I have traveled to many countries, worked with many partners around the world. But when I set foot in Ho Chi Minh City today, listening to the Lĩnh Nam Cosmos representatives present about the Bach Gia Museum, the Bach Gia Female Heroes program, the vision of industrializing Vietnamese heritage — I was truly moved. This is not an ordinary commercial meeting. This is a meeting between two nations both having millennia-old cultures, both believing that culture is the greatest strength of a nation in this century."
"Vietnam has a rich cultural treasure not yet properly industrialized. We believe that together with Lĩnh Nam Cosmos, we can bring Vietnamese cultural imagery to the world the way Pop Mart did with contemporary Chinese culture — but with a very distinct Vietnamese identity."
The fact that Dingyi established the legal entity Hong Kong Dingyi Creative Culture in 2024 clearly shows the group's internationalization strategy. And the fact that Ho Chi Minh City was chosen as the first official destination in Dingyi's ASEAN journey is a strong signal: Vietnam is identified as the number one priority market in their regional strategy.
Next steps: from agreement to action
Closing the working session in Ho Chi Minh City, the two parties agreed on a concrete roadmap:
- Q3/2026: Proceed to sign the official Strategic Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
- Immediately: Establish a Vietnam-China Joint Working Group to launch the first pilot project — producing the sculpture collection and experiential artifacts for the Bach Gia Heritage Museum
- May 25–27, 2026: Both parties will jointly attend the DAVAS Angel Investment Summit 2026 at Ariyana Da Nang, where this cooperation model will be officially introduced to the regional angel investor community
- End of 2026: The Lĩnh Nam Cosmos delegation will conduct a reciprocal business trip to Dongguan, directly visiting the "Dingyi Dream Workshop" and engaging in deeper technical work
Conclusion: When two cultural currents meet
The meeting in Ho Chi Minh City between Lĩnh Nam Cosmos and Dingyi Culture is not just a commercial event. It is the meeting between the world-class production capability of Guangdong's "creative factory" and Vietnam's millennia-old cultural heritage depth, between "Made in China" speed and refinement and "Soul of Vietnam" identity and spirit.
It is also a symbol of a new trend in Vietnam-China economic-cultural relations in the creative economy era: not a one-way import, but a two-way co-creation — where each side brings their best strengths together to create values that neither side could create alone.
This event therefore promises to reshape the map of Vietnam's cultural-creative industry in the coming decade.
Lĩnh Nam Cosmos is a core member of Linh Nam Group's Knowledge Economy pillar, operating in the fields of cultural industry investment, heritage preservation, and creating internationally-positioned Vietnamese cultural IPs. For cooperation inquiries, please contact the Lĩnh Nam Cosmos representative office in Ho Chi Minh City.