Hong Kong: 'The real Santa's grotto'
By: Bajram Hysa Facebook Twitter Google + |
2,000 exhibitors from 39 countries took part this year, the most ever.
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You may think Santa's grotto is hidden in a snow-covered Arctic cabin, but those in the know say its real location is Hong Kong's cavernous harbor-front convention center.
Each January for the past
40 years, the world's toy makers have converged on the city for the
international toy fair -- the world's second largest.
Eyes peeled for next
Christmas's must-have toy, buyers scour some 2,000 stalls that tout
everything from classical wooden blocks to high-tech remote control
gadgets.
"It's like Santa's
paradise, there's absolutely everything that you can dream of here,"
said one Russian buyer who identified himself as Sergey.
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Bringing joy one wooden toy at a time
The fair, which finished
on Thursday, featured everything from virtual pet rabbits to an area
that showed how toys have therapeutic benefits for both children and the
elderly.
Hong Kong's toy industry,
which has struggled in recent years, may be slowly returning to its
glory days, according to the fair's organizer.
Although the factory
floors that were once dotted across the city are now in mainland China,
Hong Kong still maintains its status as a hub for the toy industry.
"Hong Kong is the world's
toy town," said C.K. Yeung, chairman of the Hong Kong Trade Development
Council (HKTDC) Toys Advisory Committee.
"The designs,
engineering, support services and also sales and marketing platforms,
these are all in Hong Kong, so buyers are coming here to shop."
Alex Wong, sales manager
of Wange Industrial Co based in China, which sells toy blocks, says the
city is the ideal place to showcase his wares to the international
market.
"Hong Kong is a financial center, we can introduce our products there," he said.
Safety concerns
China's reputation as a
toy manufacturer took a hit in the last decade over safety concerns. In
the largest scandal in 2007, millions of Chinese-made toys were recalled
due to lead contamination.
Toy helicopter
But Yeung said that standards were improving and were now equivalent to those found in the United States or Europe.
Among the new standards
is a ban introduced last year on six kinds of phthalates -- substances
that can be absorbed through the skin and are believed to cause hormone
malfunctions and deformations.
The move was widely praised by numerous activist groups such as Greenpeace.
Remi Leclerc, a
professor who teaches toy design at the Hong Kong Polytechnic
University, says while the city remains an industry hub, Hong Kong has
struggled to develop its own toy brands, instead specializing in
manufacturing for big, multinational players.
"Hong Kong is trying to
move away from that model, the revenue is developing a brand and being
able to strategically manage it," he said. "Breaking that glass ceiling
has been difficult here."
Leclerc also said Hong
Kong must think carefully how it can stay ahead of mainland China, which
has been making strides in both quality and marketing.
"Hong Kong at this point
has no competitors in terms of training and developing that know-how,
not only on that production level but also in the future in terms of
value creation," he said.
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