Editor's note:

Rising disposable incomes, economic growth and?parents' wish to give their children the best of everything have created growth opportunities for baby product makers.

Food and Drink

Soft drink maker Wahaha to sell milk powder

Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co Ltd (Wahaha Group) will extend to the infant formula milk powder field, said Zong Qinghou, group chairman.

A high-end infant formula, labeled Aidisheng, the Chinese pronunciation of Edison, will be launched and expects a productivity of 100,000 tons and revenue of 10 billion yuan.

According to Zong, Wahaha will cooperate with a well-known European corporate, which bases on the Netherlands for milk source, to produce the new product. [Full story]

Clothing

Mothercare plans ambitious growth throughout China

Mother- and baby-products retailer Mothercare UK Ltd plans to aggressively expand its business in China in an attempt to cash in on the country's vast baby population and growing purchasing power.

The company intends to set up 15 new outlets every year in China over the next few years. It is an ambitious target considering that Mothercare only arrived in China in 2008 with a store in Solana Lifestyle Shopping Park, Beijing. The company had 11 stores in China, mostly in the affluent areas of big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou by the end of last year. [Full story]

Rising disposable income and the desire to give their children the best of facilities are triggering a surge in baby-product sales among Chinese "baby boomers" - those born during or after the 1980s.

Buoyed by the increased consumption, manufacturers are leaving no stone unturned to cash in on the "fourth baby boom" expected to last until 2015 and are increasingly using traditional channels and the Internet to push sales. Although the babies' and yongsters' products industry is still in its infancy, companies are now moving up the value chain to cash in on China's robust economic growth. [Full story]

Entertainment 

Make your child's dreams come true

This is no fantasy at Family Box, a childhood development company. "Find the dreams of your children and bring them to reality" is Family Box's motto.

Family Box opened its first center in Beijing in December 2009 and now has more than 2,000 members. Its clientele ranges from 3-month-old toddlers to 12-year-olds and the company has already started making profits. [Full story]

Education

Kindergartens for the rich

Competition in China literally starts at the beginning of a person's life. Parents in the city don't want their children to fall behind, so they compete to get their offspring into the best kindergartens.

The demand for early education has created a market of high-cost kindergartens in the city, which charge admission fees that are one-third higher than regular kindergartens, according to Song Jinzhi, head of the Oriental Cambridge Kindergarten in Beijing. [Full story]

There is no shortage of parental advice sites and blogs from mothers in the United States, but in China the field is sparse. This has led to a boom in websites for parents and children, including Yaolan.com and Babytree.com. China's two leading portal websites - sina.com and sohu.com - have launched parenting blogs. Taobao.com has set up a channel for baby and mothers in 2006, selling nearly 2 million children's products.

Babytree has 12 million visitors a month for peer-to-peer discussions about pregnancy, newborns and raising kids up to the age of 6. International advertisers, including Dumex, are major cash cows for Babytree. [Full story]

Redbaby to go public in 2011

Redbaby, China's biggest online retailer for baby products is expected to go public in 2011, Reuters reported, citing US venture capital investor New Enterprise Associates (NEA).

Redbaby, which sells baby items as well as other household goods will seek an initial public offering (IPO) in the United States, NEA's managing director Jiang Xiaodong said in Shanghai.[FUll story]

?

Chinese struggle with cost of raising children

An ongoing Internet survey, launched by one of China's popular websites, www.sina.com, shows that about 83 percent of netizens think the cost of rearing childen is too high.

The survey, completed by 3,283 netizens by far, quizzes the participants on some newly-released finding by a Nanjing-based University. [Full story]

Second child? One is enough!

Sometimes Yvonne Gao envies mothers who have only one child, though she said her twin daughters have brought a lot of fun and happiness.

The 32-year-old, who works at a cosmetics company in Shanghai, gave birth to twin girls two years ago. [Full story]