TOYING WITH INDIA?
From toys to Diwali lamps and lights to even idols of Hindu deities and puja paraphernalia, Chinese knick-knackery is ubiquitous in Indian markets
Nerf Guns is a rage among preteens in India, and among the few toys the country manufactures and exports. Otherwise, nearly 80 per cent of toys in India are imports—mostly from China. India accounts for a meagre Rs 4,000 crore of the $90 billion (Rs 6.7 lakh crore) global toy market. With precious little done to woo global toy brands to set up manufacturing in the country, and production costs shooting up in the US and Europe, toy production has shifted base to China. China exported toys worth $25 billion in 2018. India’s toy imports from China in the formal sector were less than $1 billion.
In 1998, Uttar Pradesh made an unsuccessful attempt to give impetus to toy manufacturing, allotting 100 acres for the ‘Toy City’ project in Greater Noida. The plan was to give tough competition to Chinese imports by creating the largest toy manufacturing cluster in the country. Space was available for 120 plots, but only 12 came up. The Greater Noida Authority allotted the rest to other industries. “China’s dominance in the toy market is only two decades old,” says Raj Kumar, former president of the Toy Association of India, New Delhi. “We ignored our traditional [production] centres, and China captured the market in no time.” Now, a new toy production hub is being planned in Greater Noida, near the Jewar airport site. UP officials met Toy Association of India representatives in Lucknow last week to discuss the project.
This Union budget, the government announced a sharp hike in import duty on toys—from 20 to 60 per cent. To improve quality, it has mandated that toy factories take BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) certification. Toys have also been removed from the Open General Licence (OGL) list, a move that may discourage imports. “I did not want to import Chinese toys and tried a few good [domestic] manufacturers. I was even willing to pay a bit extra, but the price differential turned out to be 30 per cent. Chinese products offer economies of scale,” says Amit Sundra, owner of Ram Chander and Sons, an iconic toy shop in New Delhi’s Connaught Place area.
R. Jeswant, CEO and MD of Funskool, India’s leading
toy manufacturer, is hopeful that the higher import duties will prod domestic manufacturers to build production capacity. “This could well become an advantage, and more toy companies may source products from India,” he says.
Not just toys, China also rules the market for decorative items and sundry small commodities—fancy lights, Diwali string lights, idols of deities, etc. “Ninety per cent of quality polystone and ceramic idols come from China,” says Kuldeep Singh Sachdeva, a trader in Delhi’s Sadar Bazaar, one of the largest hubs of such products. Government data shows India imported ceramic and polypropylene goods worth Rs 619 crore between April 2019 and February 2020. Sadar Bazaar has some 50 importers dealing in gift items and idols. Most of them import over 100 containers of such goods every year. With goods in every container worth about Rs 20 lakh, the scale of this business in Sadar Bazaar alone is over Rs 1,000 crore. The goods include mobile accessories and machine parts.
While idol production remains a cottage industry in India, these are produced en masse by large factories in China. “Unlike India, manufacturers in China keep innovating, such as adding lights or music to idols, to keep buyers interested. The market laps up the innovations,” says Pawan Kumar, an importer. For instance, China improvised the clay lamps used during Diwali by introducing wax and gel-based diyas. “Imports can be reduced only if the government makes policies to promote quality products at home at reasonable prices,” says Sachdeva.
At Delhi’s Bhagirath Palace, the biggest electrical goods market in India, with over 2,000 wholesalers, traders dealing in fancy and string lights are predicting a dull festive season, beginning Dussehra and Diwali. Usually, April-May is when they visit China to place their orders, which arrive in India and get transported to distributors over the next four months. But not this year. Ajay Sharma, president, Federation of All India Electrical Traders, says: “Over 80 per cent of electrical items sold during Diwali are imported from China. India does not have the infrastructure to produce such lights.”
Our dependence on China, even for trivial festival paraphernalia and artefacts, is a bald fact. To rewrite that story and stride towards self-reliance, India will have to do better than anti-China rhetoric; we must formulate a strategy to achieve that self-reliance. An overnight boycott of Chinese products will do us more harm than good.
NOT JUST TOYS, CHINA RULES THE SUNDRY SMALL COMMODITIES MARKET AS WELL—FANCY LIGHTS, DIWALI STRING LIGHTS, IDOLS OF DEITIES...
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