Hape Announces Contest for ASTRA Retailers

April 23, 2012 By

Hape North America, a leading worldwide toy manufacturer, has announced a contest giving one ASTRA retailer a chance to win a trip for two to China. Hape will select a winner who will travel to Shanghai and Ningbo. During the trip, the winner will stop by Hape’s manufacturing campus, which produced more than 8.6 million toys in 2011.

For a chance to win the trip, ASTRA retailers must submit a photo of their best four-foot section of Hape merchandised product to marketing@hapetoys.com by May 15.  One retailer will be announced at Hape’s booth (No. 216) during the Cocktail Reception on Monday, June 11 at ASTRA Marketplace in Baltimore, Md.

This post was originally written by Leah Rocketto and published by ToyBook.com. For more news, visit www.toybook.com, follow The Toy Book on Twitter, and like The Toy Book on Facebook. The Toy Book is a bimonthly trade magazine covering the toy industry, published by Adventure Publishing Group.

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Report: Toys Imported into U.S. Dropped 9 Percent in September

November 3, 2011 By

Toys imports into the United States dropped 9 percent in September year-over-year, according to figures from The Journal of Commerce/PIERS. September was the eighth straight drop for toys coming into the U.S. The drop in container volume is attributed mostly to China.

The 60,616 20-foot-equivalent units arriving at ports in September, according to measurements by PIERS, marked a 7.6 percent year-to-date drop—or 30,430 fewer containers—from the same period last year. To date, 89 percent of overall inbound toy shipments this year have originated in China (including Hong Kong). China’s market share is down 2 percent compared to 2010, while toy shipments from Vietnam have grown 82 percent between 2001 and 2010. A full analysis of the JOC/PIERS findings is available online at www.joc.com.

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CPSC to Open Consumer Product Safety Office in China

January 10, 2011 By

The Consumer Product Safety Commission will set up its first office outside the United States in China in an effort to reduce the number of dangerous products reaching the American market.

Commission head Inez Tenenbaum told reporters Monday the office also aims to make it easier for the U.S. to raise concerns with the Chinese government about product safety problems, including toxic metals in toys. Tenenbaum said choosing China as the commissions first overseas location made sense because 45 percent of the consumer products and 90 percent of all toys sold in the United States come from China and Hong Kong.

The CPSC office, to be located within the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, will have two employees to start, an attache and a safety specialist, who will work with their Chinese counterparts and help educate Chinese manufacturers about American product standards, Tenenbaum said.

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Li & Fung President Says China’s Low Cost Era is Over

June 28, 2010 By

President and executive director of Li & Fung, Ltd., Bruce Rockowitz, told audience members at the Reuters Consumer and Retail Summit that he believed that the low-cost era in China was likely over. Rockowitz said China was moving into “an era for higher prices,” citing greater commodities prices and labor costs.

Despite growing costs, Li & Fung will continue half of its production in China, switching to sourcing from China’s cheaper interior to its coastal area as infrastructure in the interior grows with high-speed railways.

Li & Fung said that China would continue to be its biggest sourcing country, followed by Vietnam. Despite China being its biggest sourcing country, Rockowitz said the top 100 retailers only accounted for 10 percent of total domestic retail.

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Guangdong’s Toy Exports up 47.1% in February

March 22, 2010 By

According to www.chinaknowledge.com, the export value of toys in Guangdong Province amounted to $330 million in February, up 47.1 percent year on year, according to statistics from the local customs.

In the first two months of this year, the province’s toy export value rose 26.3 percent from the same period of last year to $720 million, with $260 million worth of toys exported to the U.S., accounting for 36.1 percent of the total toy exports of Guangdong.

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