The Traders’ Body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) announced that during the Diwali 2020 season, in the midst of the full boycott of Chinese products, traders across the country sold goods worth around 72,000 crores. Sales of the country’s Diwali festive season rose by more than 10.8 percent year-on-year, representing about 7 crore traders and 40,000 trade associations, the confederation, indicating good prospects for small businesses, said.
Based on reports collected from 20 different cities, including top metros such as Lucknow, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Jammu, and Jaipur, the traders collected sales data. The group is the leading advocate around the nation for small traders and businesses.
In many states, such as Delhi, West Bengal, Sikkim, Odisha, Rajasthan, and some other states, small traders and firecracker sellers faced a loss of about 10,000 crore due to the ban on the selling of firecrackers. During the festive season, toys, FMCG goods, electrical appliances, utensils, confectionery pieces, gift items, home furnishings, candy, furniture, clothes, footwear, Diwali pooja items such as clay diyas, craft products were the main products recording sales.
Despite the upbeat survey, for the first time since independence in 1947, the economy, which grew at the slowest pace in over a decade during the year to the end of March, is likely to enter a technical recession. A contraction of 8.6 percent in the July-September quarter was projected by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on the back of a 23.9 percent contraction in the April-June quarter.
However, if the momentum gained in September and October is maintained, the country could return to growth in the current quarter ending December 2020, the RBI said.
CAIT also said that its boycott of the call for Chinese products had resulted in a trade loss for China worth around 40,000 crores. The robust sales that occurred during the Diwali festival season in commercial markets suggest good business prospects in the future and brought back some smiles on the faces of traders. Diwali sales also mean that in terms of sale-purchase of products, the citizens of India have beaten both Covid-19 and China,” the release said.
Meanwhile, in December, CAIT is likely to launch its BharatEMarket e-commerce platform to carry the community of its traders online. The platform will be launched in collaboration with the Department for Industry Promotion and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and promoted by Startup India and Invest India of Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with All India Consumer Goods Distributors Federation and Avana Capital, a small business lender.
