Black sheep evade safety rules for toys, fair chief warns (Feature)

By Elke Richter Dec 24, 2010, 2:06 GMT

Nuremberg, Germany - Child safety is now a central issue for the world toy industry, but a few black sheep are still bringing the trade a bad name, the organizer of the world's main toy expo says.

'So much has been done for safety, because the industry is very conscious that this is about children and wherever children are involved you must be extra-careful,' Ernst Kick, chief executive of the Nuremberg Toy Fair, which runs February 3-8 next year, said.

Speaking to the German Press Agency dpa, he said a few manufacturers and merchants were still sidestepping standards that ban toxic paints and plasticizers and forbid early childhood toys having tiny detachable parts that might choke a baby.

'Unfortunately we do have a few black sheep, and there is no system on earth that can catch them all,' he said.

Exhibitors at the annual fair are led by Chinese companies, the world's principal exporters of toys. The event, which is closed to the general public, is attended by trade buyers from all over the globe. An estimated 70,000 new products will be on show.

While some major toy brands fascinate children worldwide, Kick said play habits vary widely by culture. Board games, which are a big business in France and Germany, have enjoyed a modest revival in North America, but attract very little interest elsewhere.

'In India, hardly anybody buys new board games,' he said.

US parents expect toy and game purchases to offer quick gratification. It is mainly in Europe that parents and children sit down together for hours to bond over a game of cards or on a board.

Kick explains, 'For Germans, their child is not so much just another body round the house as a project to be sheltered and provided by the parents with the best available resources.'

That explains why German parents gladly buy board games if they see some educational value in them.

Key trends in dolls, toy cars and other playthings include the ever-growing inclusion of electronic components.

Manufacturers are also devising ingenious ways to connect play over the internet, effectively 'combining the real and virtual worlds,' as Kick puts it. 'Different media are merging.'

Typically, children join online communities that share an interest in the same toy or game. Coming up soon are detective games where children do not just find the clues online, but can have the clues sent as texts to their mobile phones.

Kick said the 2011 fair is likely to show that a refocussing on dolls is happening after they were in decline over several years.

While most consumers are indifferent to who makes toys, manufacturers remain deeply concerned about rivals who steal their ideas in an industry which depends on novelty to generate sales.

'We have never really understood the sales channels employed for the trade in knock-offs,' admitted Kick. 'There is a black market out there that the industry cannot really control.'

European toy companies count on copyright law and customs inspections to intercept the knock-offs. Copyright is a strong tool in most nations, but remains weak in the main exporter nation China, where copycat products are widely available.

Kick said there had been major improvements in China thanks to International Council of Toy Industries' (ICTI) programme to promote ethical manufacturing, in the form of fair labour treatment.

ICTI set up the CARE (Caring, Awareness, Responsible, Ethical) Foundation to certify manufacturers who meet its standards.

'Every significant toy manufacturing nation has now joined this certification process,' said Kick. The certified plants make safe toys and treat staff well, never for example employing children.

The executive rejects the idea that children have ever been put to work in Chinese toy factories.

'I have never seen children working there,' said Kick, who spends a lot of time visiting the manufacturers to persuade them to exhibit in Nuremberg.

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