Ivan Ting keeps Kader right on value chain track

HK toymaker is staying put and expanding in Guangdong

Ivan Ting Tien-li learned the importance of quality and safety well before millions of Chinese-made tainted and poisonous toys were pulled off shelves in the United States last year.

The fresh-faced executive director of Kader Holdings, one of Hong Kong's longest-established toymakers, has never had any product recalled. But he does concede 'a traumatic experience' related to quality back in his college days.

In a carefully prepared 'show and tell' presentation in front of dozens of fellow students, Mr Ting was mortified to see his Kader train set fail to work. The embarrassment prompted the junior Ting to place quality above all else, a determination that pushed the toymaker ahead of rivals in the value chain.

That ideal has never been more critical, with rising costs, the appreciating yuan and slowing global economic growth pushing many of Kader's rivals to the wall.

Set up by his late grandfather, Ting Hsiung-chao, in 1948, Kader is the maker of the best-selling Cabbage Patch Kids and train set collectables. But it is facing a challenge unseen in its 60-year history. At least 500 companies, one in seven Hong Kong-owned toy factories in Guangdong have collapsed, victims of product recalls, rising raw materials prices, wages and fuel costs.

By the end of the year, 1,000 toymakers were expected to have failed, the Toys Manufacturers' Association of Hong Kong said. 'At one stage, a large number of Hong Kong producers were expanding the size of their factories,' Mr Ting said. 'They hired tens of thousands of workers and built multi-storey plants.'