Chinese goods fizzle out with sales dip of 60 per cent

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) claims that there was a 60 per cent dip in the sales of Chinese goods this Diwali as a result of the massive social media campaign urging people to boycott Chinese products. “Even the traders lacked enthusiasm when it came to selling Chinese products,” a CAIT spokesperson said. Instead of Chinese goods, people preferred earthen lamps and decorative items made from paper, clay and plastic to decorate their houses, and some households even used last year’s material for decoration purposes. Less consumption of Chinese goods did not deter people from celebrating the festival. 

“Realising the mood among the people because of the social media campaign, traders across the country were reluctant to display Chinese goods on the counter and some traders had even put “Make in India” boards at their business establishments to woo consumers,” a CAIT spokesperson said. 

“These statistics are based on the indications gathered by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) from 20 cities in different states, including Delhi, Mumbai, Nagpur, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Kanpur and Bhopal which are generally considered as distribution cities,” the spokesperson said. 

Meanwhile, apparently, crackers made at Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu were preferred over the Chinese counterparts. Although alternatives to various Chinese products were limited, people still focussed more on Indian goods. To discourage sale of Chinese goods in India, the need to develop alternative products was felt for which the government has to plan a long-term strategy by providing all-out support to our small manufacturing sector to produce quality goods at cheaper prices and augment their manufacturing capacity, a resident here said. 

The government has to make the latest technology available to the small sector and must incur substantial expenditure on research and development. If all these steps are taken simultaneously, our trade can do wonders since we have everything at our end to give competition in the global market, the resident added.