Traders' body CAIT launches campaign to boycott Chinese goods

Mumbai: Traders’ body CAIT on Wednesday launched a campaign to boycott Chinese goods with an aim to reduce India’s imports of products manufactured in the country by USD 13 billion by December 2021.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has prepared a list of 3,000 items which are currently imported from China and easily replaceable by Indian manufactured goods. The campaign call by CAIT, which claims to represent 7 crore traders and 40,000 trade associations, comes amid border tensions between India and China.

“The campaign titled ‘Indian Goods – Our Pride’ aims to achieve reduction in imports of Chinese manufactured goods by Rs 1 lakh crore (about USD 13 billion) by December 2021,” CAIT said. Addressing a virtual press conference, CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said there are four types of imports from China to India — finished goods, raw materials, spare parts and technology products. In the first phase, the traders’ body has decided to boycott imports of finished goods from China, he said.

India’s imports from China stand at about USD 70 billion at present.