Germans keen to import quality toys from India

New Delhi, Oct 23 (UNI) In view of the toxicity threat from Chinese toys earning adverse publicity world over, a good opportunity has emerged for Indian manufacturers with big German toy companies now contemplating to import of quality products from India.

''India is one of the most important market for the German Toy industry'', said Mr Ernst Kick, CEO, Spielwarenmesse eG at a Presentation held here today to promote the International Toy Fair to be held in Nurnberg, Germany from February 7-12, 2008.

After the toxicity threat from Chinese toys, the world's toy industry is alarmed and looking at alternative sources. Safety and Quality will be the topics of discussion in the forthcoming fair.

''There is a big opportunity for Indian toy manufacturers to tap the German market wherein 80 per cent of the toys are coming from China'', said Mr B Steinruecke, Director General, Indo German Chamber of Commerce.

Speaking at the Presentation, Mr S K Kinra, Officer-in-charge, UNIDO, informed that Indian toy industry were not faced with the challenges of globalisation prior to the opening of the economy.

UNIDO is undertaking technology diffusion and support programme for small scale industries and toy industry is one of them.

According to the survey conducted by them, Indian toy industry has geared up in the last 4-5 years in terms of quality and design.

They have the competence to provide cost effective and quality toys, however, it needs more concentrated effort to increase their production so as to cater to both the domestic as well as global market.

The Indian toy industry is worth Rs 2,500 crore and over 60-70 per cent of it, is imported. Whereas, the worldwide turnover for traditional toys in 2005 was over 60 billion US dollars and overall 90 billion dollars inclusive of video games, etc. The turnover in Europe was 13.294 billion Euros and 78.6 per cent of EU toy imports come from China.

''There's a huge potential for tie-ups with their European counterparts to outsource the manufacturing to India and also for selling European toys here,'' Mr Kinra added.

The International Toy Fair, the World's biggest shop window for toys, displaying over one million toys had more than 70,000 new products this year (2007).

The main highlight of the fair will be the basic theme which is "Learning by Playing". Playing is the best way of learning which encourages the development of intelligence, personality, social skills, motoric skills, concentration skills, speech skills and creativity, said Mr Christian Ulrich, Director Marketing and Communication, Spielwarenmesse eG.

There will be toys for Pre-school, Primary School&further education, he added.

The fair being the largest toy fair in the world with an exhibition area of 1,60,000 sq mts drew over 2,750 exhibitors from 60 countries this year. And more than 80,000 trade visitors from 120 nations visited the fair.

Though India's participation was negligible with 32 exhibitors and 102 visitors but it is growing positively as compared to the figures of 2006 which were 24 exhibitors and 92 visitors.

The number of Indian visitors to the 59th International Toy Fair in February 2008 is expected to be up about 20 per cent as there is a lot of potential in the Indian toy industry, adds Kick.

UNI