India’s traders sold Rs72K crore goods during the Diwali season because of Chinese goods’ boycott

NEW DELHI, Nov 15, 2020, Financial Express. Traders’ body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Sunday said traders across the country sold goods worth Rs 72,000 crore during the Diwali season because of “complete boycott of Chinese goods,” Financial Express reported.

The confederation, which represents around 7 crore traders and 40,000 trade associations, claimed that the season also “gave China the expected loss of Rs 40,000 crore,” based on the reports it gathered from 20 different cities including top metros, Nagpur, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Jammu, etc. Nonetheless, small traders and firecracker sellers witnessed a loss of Rs 10,000 crore due to the ban on the sale of firecrackers in multiple states such as Delhi West Bengal, Sikkim, Odisha, Rajasthan, Haryana, etc.

FMCG goods, toys, electrical appliances, and white goods, utensils, gift items, confectionary items, sweets, home furnishing and decor, footwear, apparels, Diwali pooja goods including clay diyas, handicraft items, and more remained the major goods witnessing sale during the festive season. “The traders and people of the Country gave a strong and big jolt to China,” said B.C.Bhartia, National President and Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary-General, CAIT in a joint statement. The traders’ body is also expecting to further reduce imports from China to the tune of Rs 1 lakh crore by December 2021.

To help firecracker traders overcome loss due to ban on the sale of firecrackers, CAIT had last week “strongly demanded” compensation from Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and heads of other states. It called the ban a blatant violation of a March 2019 order of the Supreme Court of India that said “it wasn’t in favour of a complete ban on crackers and instead suggested regulating the polluting aspect of the industry.”

Meanwhile, CAIT is likely to launch its e-commerce portal BharatEMarket in December to bring its traders’ community online even as it continues to take on Amazon and Flipkart for their alleged malpractices in business. The portal would be launched in partnership with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and promoted by PM Modi’s Startup India and Invest India along with All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation and small business lender Avana Capital.