Baby first, no kidding!

By Sun Xiaohua (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-01 08:16

For those aged under three, food, especially milk powder, took up most of the expenditure at between 40 and 60 percent. Next came disposable diapers, which took up 20 to 30 percent of costs.

For youngsters between the ages of three and six, education costs began to exceed food bills.

Most Chinese turn to overseas manufacturers and service providers rather than domestic companies when searching for products because they have higher guarantees on quality and safety.

Milk powder is a typical example of this preference.

"I only feed my baby girl with imported milk powder," said Liesel Wang, an employee at a German company in Shanghai, who has a two-year-old girl. "Although the price is about five or eight times that of domestic milk powder, I believe it is worth the cost because the food security examination is much more stringent."

After the tainted milk powder scandal erupted last year, more and more Chinese parents agree with Wang, buying milk powder from the US, EU countries and Japan.

"Even in my village, people have given up on Chinese milk powder and turned to the foreign brands," said Tian Lanying, a woman who lives in rural Henan province. "Nestle is popular now."

Assuming a fifth of babies are not breast-fed, that means more than three million of them would be relying on milk powder, according to last year's birth statistics. The figure is most likely higher because many mothers return to work after their statutory three-month maternity leave.

That creates a market running into billions for foreign brands, analysts said.

The fear of food insecurity has stretched into other aspects of baby care products.

"Once you're aware of one thing it just spreads and you start questioning everything," Wu Yiming, a father living in Beijing said. "You can drive yourself absolutely crazy trying to ensure your baby stays healthy."

Overseas brands also dominate the domestic toy market.

Chen Hu, vice president of Letao.com, China's biggest online toy shop, said now the website only sells imported or foreign brand toys, because they have "safe raw materials and design". Indeed, that point has been emphasized on the packaging, after the tainted milk powder episode.

With monthly sales of about 1 million yuan, the best sellers in Chen's Internet shop are the US brand of Little Tikes and the French brand of Bao. Most of the buyers are from big cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and the affluent metropolises in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, according to Chen.

However, sometimes, a foreign brand name also gets tainted. Baby bath products from Johnson & Johnson China were revealed to contain formaldehyde, a toxic material possibly linked with the development of cancer.

"I was driven mad with worry by the incident," said Wang, who used Johnson & Johnson products on her baby daughter. "I am really confused about whom I should trust."

The straightforward answer is that safety guarantees are the key to finding gold in China's babycare industry.

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