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Download Hu Lantian remains confident that her toy business has something special to offer that can help it tap into overseas markets in the near future. "As a toymaker, we have been hit by the global economic downturn. But we are confident in the market prospects because we are different - the toys made by our company are self-innovated and we have been doing this for nearly a decade," said Hu, without giving the company's actual sales figures. Hu, founder of the toymaker Shenzhen PP Bear Industry Investment Co, said she hoped more self-innovated Chinese brands will enter the international market. "It just needs some time for international recognition of our brand, which is quite different from those simply copied and processed. And I do believe that sales will rebound once global demand recovers," Hu said. In 2003, when Hu launched her toy bears, which interact with children by imitating human expressions, she knew her product was vastly superior to the millions of other toys being made in Shenzhen, a major manufacturing hub in Guangdong province. What PP Bear has in common with many other companies in Guangdong, an economic powerhouse in South China, is that it is striving to upgrade while also trying to enter the international market by focusing on technological innovation. "The problem for us now in the domestic market is that our products are always copied by other toymakers. So, we will shift our business strategy to the overseas market," Hu said. | 
