Toy companies confronted with new export challenges

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Category: Ningbo Business

Published: Tuesday, 06 November 2012 09:32

It is learned from Ningbo Inspection and Quarantine Bureau that according to American Toy Association, the two effective dates of instruction of 2011/65/EU (or RoHS2.0), the EU's new instruction for hazardous substances in electronic and electrical (E & E) toys, are approaching. The revised instruction will cover all the toys with electronic or electrical functions. Some elements of the instruction will come into effect on January 2, 2013.

As is known, the RoHS instruction was first released in 2003. It imposed restrictions on such substances as lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls or polybrominated diphenyl ether in the specific types of electronic and electrical equipments and toys lest the proscribed materials be disposed of or released into the environment.

As the biggest exporter of toys to the EU, China is confronted with more and more demanding international standards for toys. Ningbo is the main toy production and export base in China, about one third of whose toys are exported to the EU. With the traditional way of producing and low value-added products, the related enterprises have suffered from the pressure of increasing prices of raw materials, lack of labor and increasing of the labor cost. The RoHS2.0 instruction is liable to pose new problems including raw material updating and increase of inspection costs. The export situation of toy companies in Ningbo will become even more difficult as their level of dependency on the upstream raw material enterprises continues to deepen. Statistics show that in the first three quarters this year, 4595 batches of toys were exported to the EU, with a total value of US$91.3115 million, including 170,000 pieces of electrical toys with a total value of US$761,300.