Traders' body CAIT has appealed to Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani and 50 other captains of India Inc including veterans like Ratan Tata, Azim Premji, Gautam Adani, Ajay Piramal, Anand Mahindra and Sunil Bharti Mittal to shun the use of Chinese items in their businesses and join its campaign to boycott Chinese goods.
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) also urged Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Vikram Kirloskar, Shiv Nadar, Pallonji Mistry, Uday Kotak, Nusli Wadia, Shashi Ruia, Madhukar Parekh, Harsh Mariwala, Satish Reddy and Pankaj Patel, among other prominent industrialists to lend their support to its "Bhartiya Samaan-Humaara Abhimaan" campaign.
Indian businesses in sectors such as automobiles, electronics, pharmaceuticals and solar energy remain heavily dependent on imports from China.
Maruti Suzuki's Chairman R C Bhargava and Bajaj Auto's Managing Director Rajiv Bajaj has reportedly said that the campaign to boycott Chinese goods was not feasible as imports of Chinese components were more competitive and thus necessary for manufacturing vehicles.
Interestingly, CAIT has also appealed to Bajaj Group patriarch Rahul Bajaj to join its campaign.
The Chinese exports in dollar terms to India in 2019 amounted to USD 74.72 billion compared to USD 76.87 billion in 2018.
The traders' body in the letter to Ambani said "at a time when China's army in the most clandestine manner has committed a barbaric attack on the Indian army at Ladakh border resulting into the brutal killing of 20 brave sons of the country, the heart of every Indian is filled with deep anguish, resentment and abhorrence against the atrocities of the Chinese and their persistent attitude of antagonism towards India".
The trader's body expressed hope that Ambani would give a clarion call to promote Indian goods.
"Your positive decision could be a big boost for the campaign and a great service to the soldiers who have laid down their lives for their motherland," it said to Ambani.
CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said that being a successful entrepreneur and one of the captains of Indian Industry, it has invited the group of Industrialists led by Ambani to join the movement as a valued partner and sought their support, terming it a "game changing initiative that has the potential to reshape India''s journey as a global superpower by reducing China''s dominance".
CAIT has decided to boycott Chinese goods in a phased manner and for the first phase it has earmarked "finished goods" from an identified list of about 450 broad categories of products which nearly has more than 3,000 products and those products are already been manufactured in India.
In the meantime, it will be pursuing the government to draw a comprehensive strategy to facilitate Indian Industry, small industry, entrepreneurs, startups and others to evolve and manufacture goods in India pertaining to raw material, spare parts and technology driven goods, which are currently being imported from China.
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