As the mid autumn festival is fast approaching, streets well known for toys such as Hang Ma, Hang Luoc, Luong Van Can are being more crowded. This year, the Vietnamese mid autumn toys continue dominating toys made in China.
Traditional mid autumn toys such as star-shaped lanterns, colorful masks, wooden drums, fish-shaped lanterns and decorative multi-colored lanterns are favorite to customers with safe materials, diversified designs and reasonable prices. At present, small star-shaped lantern is priced at 20,000 – 25,000 VND per piece, small wooden drum from 40,000 – 50,000 VND per piece, wooden drum in large size is 150,000 – 170,000 VND per piece. Traditional paper-made mask is priced from 20,000 – 50,000 VND per piece.
Mrs. Lan a toy store owner at 74 Hang Ma Street said, the design of Vietnamese toys this year is diverse, which is mainly hand – made with reasonable price, from 30,000 – 35,000 VND per piece. As such, many charity organizations have bought them in large quantity. For plastic toys such as LED lantern with sound designed in children favorite cartoon characters such as Minion, Pokémon, Angry Bird are sold more expensive, with 45,000 – 60,000 VND per piece.
According to the Director of Bibo Mart Nguyen Thi Nhan: At present, traditional lantern of Vietnam is favorite toy due to bright color and safe to children. In particular, the Vietnamese lantern also has education meaning with the image of Thanh Giong, Hai Ba Trung, or more special with the love of our country, Vietnam coast guard being designed into each lantern. This is one of the reason Vietnamese autumn toys are dominating from 70 – 80% the market shares of toys in Bibo Mart super markets.
Despite the traditional autumn toys are favorite to customers, however, there remains smuggled Chinese toys in the market. In order to prevent this situation, the Hanoi market surveillance agency has increased checking toy stores in Hanoi. At present, smuggled Chinese toys are sold commonly. At a toy store in 4A Cha Ca Street and No. 7 Hang Ma Street, there are lot of imported toys such as dolls, superman, robot, car without clear origins and producer labels. The administrative authority has confiscated 600 toys without origin certificate. On September 12, the Hanoi market surveillance agency also checked on a toy store at 160 Tho Quan Street and confiscated 96 plastic guns with the NERF label on it, which is prohibited to sell due to its violence.
Besides, some book store also sell smuggled toys, such as Ong Mat (205 Thanh Nhan), Tan Viet (315 Bach Mai) from all kinds, such as dolls, guns, cars, planes made in china. The authority has confiscated 400 toys with value over 10 million VND from these two book stores. Deputy head of Hanoi market surveillance agency Nguyen Cong San said: in order to prevent smuggled toys, in addition to the role of responsible agencies, it is necessary to have the participation of media organizations to promote and encourage enterprises not selling violence toys, which can potentially cause injury. At the same time, customers also need to raise awareness to provide the authority with information related to illegal stores.
