India’s largest traders body, the Confederation of All India Traders, has issued a strong repudiation of the Modi government’s boycott on various categories of Chinese goods and the subsequent economic recovery during the festive sales season, saying the country recordded over Rs 72,000 crore of sales turnover in the period.
Likewise, CAIT claimed that China lost about Rs 40,000 crore from the boycott on Chinese goods
Amidst COVID pandemic, it was altogether a different Diwali celebrated this year having some very pecuniary features including complete boycott of Chinese goods, mass usage of Indian goods as also ending the eight month business exile for traders in India whereas on the other hand, t
“Traders across country under flag of CAIT adopted Vocal for Local & Aatma Nirbhar Bharat call of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi by selling Indian goods. The robust sales that happened in commercial markets during Diwali festive season indicates good business prospects in future and brought back some smile on the faces of traders. Diwali festive sales also indicates that the people of India have beaten both COVID and China in terms of sale-purchase of festive goods,” CAIT said in a statement.
CAIT National President B.C.Bhartia Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said that reports gathered from 20 different cities considered leading distribution centres show that Diwali festive sales generated a turnover of about Rs 72 thousand crores rupees and gave China an estimated loss of Rs 40 thousand crore.
The statement, however, adds that due to the “utter negligence” of the government authorities and “despite of a Supreme Court order”, a firecracker policy was missing which resulted into the loss of around Rs 10,000 crore of business for small manufacturers and sellers of firecrackers suffered.
20 Cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Nagpur, Raipur, Bhuvneshwar, Ranchi, Bhopal, Lucknow, Kanpur, Noida, Jammu, Ahmadabad, Surat, Cochin, Jaipur, Chandigarh are considered as "distribution cities' by the CAIT for the purpose of its regular survey.
Bhartia and Khandelwal also said that the Sensex indicates that there certainly is a bright future for trade and commerce in the country since all major indices on stock exchanges are showing good result with Nifty closing at 12,780 and the Sensex at 43,637.98.
This Diwali, indices showed a 10 per cent gain despite the COVID-19 impact due to a liquidity push in systems with stimulus packages across the globe, CAIT said.
The trader’s body said the sectors that saw good sales included FMCG goods, consumer durables, toys, electrical appliances, white goods, kitchen articles and accessories, gift items, confectionery items, sweets, home furnishing, tapestry, utensils, gold and jewellery, footwear, watches, furniture, fixtures, garments, fashion apparels, cloth, home decoration goods, Diwali pooja goods including clay diyas, deities, wall hangings, handicraft items, textiles, good fortune symbols like Shubh-Laabh, Om, feats of Goddess Lakshmi for home décor.
Bhartia and Khandelwal said “As expected, there was a great countrywide support for our campaign to celebrate ‘Hindustani Diwali’ this year by boycotting Chinese products. “The traders and people of the Country gave a strong & big jolt to china along with the lesson not to take India [for] granted and that India is determined to boycott Chinese products completely,” they said, adding that local artisans, sculptors, handicraft workers and potters did good business.
“We are all set to achieve our target of reducing imports from China to the tune of Rs. One lakh crore by December,2021,” CAIT said.
