Toy World spoke to Jonny about the advantages and opportunities for manufacturers of moving production from the Far East to India. 

With regular price increases coming out of China due to currency appreciation, rises in minimum wage and growing raw material costs, plus the USA/China trade tariff war escalating apace, companies are increasingly looking to move production of goods out the Far East. Ready and able to step up is India, which is positioning itself as the new global manufacturing hub.

ToyVision’s Jonny Henton is working with two factories in India, Funskool Limited and Micro Plastics Pvt, and can see first hand the opportunities the country presents.

“The greatest advantage is cost,” he explains. “Labour is almost a quarter of what it is in China (India being $1.00/hr versus $3.60 in China: 2016 figures). However, there are other equally valuable advantages such as fewer and shorter national holidays; stable labour and currency, and supportive government initiatives.”

Another major advantage is the differences in national holidays – there are no big shutdowns such as Chinese New Year or China National Week (both of which happen to fall at awkward times commercially and present more disruption than just the time the factories are closed) to contend with. “This is a valuable benefit as it means production can continue uninterrupted, and critical ordering decisions can be taken later,” says Jonny. “Chinese New Year can impact schedules (typically spring summer production capacity and autumn winter tool build lead times) by as much as five weeks. While India has national holidays, the largest is the Ganesh Festival in early September. With port closures, this can cause 5-7 days disruption, but due to the time of year it is comparatively easy to plan around it without impacting deliveries.”

To read the full interview with Jonny, which was published in the September issue of Toy World, click here.