Business

Chinese Chakras

Eastern India's retail market is in thrall of cheap, stylish Chinese goods

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Chinese Chakras
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Outlook
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The sheer range of Chinese goods that sell in enormous volumes in this part of the country is mind-boggling—toothbrushes, footwear, underwear, clothes, automobile accessories, lighting, bathroom fixtures, the whole range of electrical and electronic goods, quilts and blankets, bed linen, utensils, crockery and cutlery, drapes, shower curtains, writing and musical instruments, computers and peripherals, bags and luggage, toys and even idols of Hindu gods and goddesses. Take the case of Nik Nish, which started off as a small store selling mainly Chinese gift items at Calcutta's underground metro station at Esplanade. Today, Nik Nish has grown to ten stores across the country, and eleven more are coming up soon. "We sell everything from fashion accessories to artificial flowers and footwear from China," says Nik Nish's general manager (marketing) Ranjan Purkayastha. Its 18,000 sq ft store on Camac Street registers an average daily footfall of 1,500.

Surprisingly, Indian industry isn't very concerned. The reason, as Misra suggests, could be that the phenomenal growth of the Indian consumer market over the last decade means Chinese imports haven't cut into the sales volumes of Indian manufacturers. "With the Indian market growing at this pace, there's more room for everyone," he says.

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Not everyone is so complacent. Some are feeling the pinch and have accused China of dumping. For example, TechNova Imaging Systems, manufacturers of pre-sensitised plates used in the printing industry in India, has filed an anti-dumping complaint against China. "Chinese plates are at least 25 per cent cheaper than our products of a similar quality. But the Chinese pricing defies logic, since the price at which they sell in India is just a little over the price of raw aluminum (the material the plates are made of) at the London Metal Exchange. They're plainly under-invoicing their products," said Anantharam V, the company's regional manager here. Sanjay Luthra, managing director of Mattel Toys in India, echoes this. Cheap Chinese toys have captured over 45 per cent of India's Rs 1,500 crore toy market.

Another area of concern is China-made items being smuggled in through Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar. "Truckloads of Chinese goods come in through our porous borders with the active connivance of border guards. The smuggled Chinese goods are, naturally, much cheaper than the legally imported ones. And that affects importers like us," Deepak Sethi, an importer of toys and fashion accessories from China, told Outlook. Though there are no official estimates of the total value of these smuggled goods, those in the know put it around Rs 100 crore a year. But Anantharam's, Luthra's and Sethis's are stray voices in a region which is enamoured of the 'Made in China' tag. Because, dumped or smuggled, Chinese goods are cheap, stylish, better designed and finished, and offer better value for money. That's what the consumer demands and gets. And it's a free market, see?

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