CAIT supports call to boycott Chinese products

PTI, May 31, 2020, 6:53 PM IST

New Delhi: Trader’s body CAIT on Sunday expressed solidarity with Ladakh-based educational reformer and visionary Sonam Wangchuk’s appeal to boycott Chinese goods.

Amid tensions between India and China, Wangchuk, the man who inspired the Bollywood blockbuster ‘3 Idiots,’ has appealed and asked Indians to boycott all Chinese companies.

In a tweet, engineer-turned-educational reformer asked people to boycott all Chinese products to stop Beijing’s “bullying” in Ladakh and liberate 1.4 billion bonded labourers in the country.

Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which claims to represent 7 crore traders, said it has identified about 3,000 categories of heavily imported Chinese products “which must immediately be replaced by Indian products as good quality Indian replacements are available for such products.”

CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said it will educate traders across the country to stop importing as well as selling these products, and more products will soon be verified and added to the list.

The trader’s body said, “The whole country understands the importance of hurting China economically and therefore we wholeheartedly welcome this great initiative and will stand shoulder to shoulder with Sonam Wangchuk.”

However, CAIT has also appealed to Indian manufacturers to “get their act together” and gear up to shoulder the responsibility.

“The role of Indian manufacturers is very significant to successfully run this campaign because at no point of time should there be any shortage of products in the market and the consumers of India should not suffer due to such scarcity,” the traders’ body said.