No, this is the year the aluminum mold was manufactured and more often than not the figure would not enter production until the following year. In some cases, a company would begin manufacturing the figure several years after the creation of the aluminum mold or later restart production, introduce alternate paint schemes, or sell the mold to another manufacturer. If your figure still has a barcode label attached, this will often have the manufacture date (month/year) stamped on it. This is the only way to date a figure conclusively, excluding exceptions where a figure was only manufactured for one year.