During the Asian financial crisis, Mr. Cai and Mr. Lai co-founded Dongguan YiFeng Plastic Hardware Products.

Factory in Dongguan, mainly making injection moulds for Hong Kong and Taiwan luggage manufacturers.

YiF was transformed to specializes in luggage combination lock. 

The trademark YiF was registered and positioned as medium to high end luggage accessories brand.

YiF moved from its earliest small workshop to a new self-built factory of 6,000+ sqm in the Fuzhu Industrial Estate.

The phenomenal design YF20212 bag lock was created, which took the world by storm and is still the dominant design for common bag locks.

At the year with the outbreak of SARS, YiF renamed as Dongquan YiFeng lock industry Co., Ltd. And established foreign trade department to start a new journey in overseas markets.

YiF was officially authorized by Travel Sentry to manufacture TSA locks and successfully engraved the YiF mark on all of its locks.

The YiF trademark was registered in many countries around the world, taking the pace of globalization to a new level.

With the establishment of Ningbo YiFeng Lock Company, YiF enabled to radiate the luggage lock business at Yangtze River Delta region.

Under global financial crisis, YiF invested all the profits of the year into the development of new products, The product line expanded to gift box lock, bicycle lock and wine bottle lock with the co-operation with top national wine brand Maotai, Also the Luggage lock lnstitute was established this year and YiF had lay the foundation of testing standard of luggage lock industry.

As the first side press lock design in industry, TSA371 and TSA372 were in the stratosphere and started a new trend within the industry.

As a brand for retail product, JUST brand was created by YiF for its new products like hardware，padlock, steering wheel lock, laptop lock and more.

At the same year, Guangzhou YiJ ia Trading Co, Ltd. was established.

The super popular TSA21137 and TSA21138 designs were favored by many international luggage brands around the world.

Ningbo YiFeng plant was relocated to a 15,000 sqm production base in Jiaxing city to better serve customers base in the Yangtze River Delta luggage region.

With a market share of 50+% in the middum to high-end luggage lock industry, YiF has become the TOP1 in the industry. YiF also started to step on the long path of research and development on electronic luggage locks. 

TSA13068 for Cosmolite luggage had been launched at the same year and hit the sales record.

After moving to the 66,000 sqm new manufacturing center, the production capacity had been greatly increased.

Since then, YiF has accelerated the process of automatic production line transformation and continued to actively invest in the reform of efficiency improvement.

It was the first time YiF cooperated with the top luxury brand on its first TSA zipper lock project by overcoming the challenges posed by Marc Newson, one of the world's top industrial designers, to achieve a perfect combination of precise structural design and high-end material craftsmanship. It starts the journey of top luxury luggage lock design.

The revolutionary luggage latch lock TSA16138 and the ultimate structural recess lock design TSA16009 were mass produced.

YiF was awarded with the title of "High and New Technology Enterprise". The Lean Production Reform Project was fully promoted at the same year. 

YiF was recognised by the Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology as the "Guangdong Province Precision Mechanical Combination Lock Design Engineering Technology Research Centre".

By increasing the registration capital to 100 million RMB,more and more automatic equipment such as fully automated lock cylinders were put into use, which speeding up production efficiency and making a breakthrough on annual output to 40 million set locks. 

The cumulative patent application quantity by this year reached up to 600.

YiF was once again awarded the title of "High-tech Enterprise". Also four patented products including TSA16138, TSA16169, TSA17003 and TSA17006, were awarded as "High-tech Products of Guangdong Province".

Automation was set to be a strategic goal of the company and a project department was established as well.

YiF got the honor with title of " Intellectual Property Demonstration Unit of Guangdong Province ".

To develop the new luggage production base, Jiangxi Xingan office was founded at the end of the same year.