European Interest

Exports are child’s play for Czechs

Flickr/byronv2/CC BY-NC 2.0

The Czech Republic is the European Union’s biggest toy exporter. According to Eurostat, Czech toys reached 32% of the EU’s overall toy exports outside the EU, worth €1.5bn overall.

As reported by Radio Praha, the Czechs export toys as far away as South Korea, Russia, Japan, Israel and the United States.

Czech Radio reported on one Czech company, Efko, which has making toys at two factories since 1993. It specialises in puzzles, wooden blocks, card and board games, as well as the Czech version of Playmobil called Igráček.

Another Czech firm, Detoa, which manufactures wooden toys at its plant in the vicinity of the Jizera Mountains, has seen its production go up by around 8% annually over the last three years.

An official from the Czech Associations for Toys and Play, Jiří Šťastný, confirmed for Czech Radio that overall Czech export had risen by 5% annually for 10 years.

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