No toys From China?

We have seen petrol prices increase rapidly over the last year along with air fares but shipping has been affected too. The cost of shipping a standard 12m container from Shanghai to New York has increased from $3,000 to $8,000 since the turn of the century.

In the first half of this year, the growth of exports from Guangdong province, the traditional heart of China’s export manufacturing, has halved.

Shipping a product halfway round the world is only worth it if the shipping costs can be contained within the sale price. For small high-value goods, like Ipods and other electrical products that might not matter, but for bulky cheap goods like toys, especially baby bath ducks, the cost of transport might make the selling of such Chinese products in Britain prohibitive.

The Chinese might have to find new markets and encourage their own people to believe that no self-respecting Chinese family should be without at least three such ducks for bath-time. They might have to move up-market and leave duck making to the Cambodians, Vietnamese and Mozambicans. Or it could be that new duck-making industries rise up in Europe – perhaps in Romania or Bulgaria.

However, there is a feint possibility that Britain will re-enter the market but with the more traditional wooden duck. After all it was Britain which introduced the toy duck to east Asia over two hundred years ago. The world might have come full circle.

Don’t get too misty eyed – oil prices are already falling and the Chinese aren’t going to let their bath-duck industry sink without a fight.