Some of the presents that lie under the Christmas tree at Christmas have traveled a long way. As the Bavarian State Office for Statistics announced on Friday, the Bavarian economy imported almost 106,400 tons of toys worth 2.2 billion euros in 2021. The temporal distribution of toy imports over the months shows a clear connection with the Christmas business: In the years 2019 to 2021, between 44 and 49 percent of the total annual exports and imports were accounted for in the last four months of the year with the respective maximum in November .
According to foreign trade statistics, a good 28 percent of the toys imported to Bavaria in 2021 were kits and building blocks, 14 percent video consoles, nine percent board games, almost six percent dolls and 5.5 percent non-human toys. Of the exports, 10.5 percent are parlor games, a good ten percent video consoles and almost eight percent kits and construction toys.
A third of all toys imported into Germany in 2021 went to Bavaria. Of the toys exported, 18.7 percent came from Bavaria. The Free State is thus the federal state with the highest proportion of traded toys. The most popular import countries for toys are the Czech Republic, Poland and China. Bavarian products often end up under the Christmas tree in France, the Czech Republic, Poland, Spain and Austria.