The recent massive press coverage in the West over shoddy, fake, or toxic Chinese goods being sold, especially in the US, has tended to result in blame being very firmly placed on Chinese manufacturers. US importers are pointing their fingers away from their own culpability and back across the Pacific to Shanghai, Guangdong, and the millions of square feet of Chinese factories churning out inexpensive product. Frightened of lawsuits in a notoriously litigious society, the US consumer appears to want to have his cake (cheap product) and eat it too - and without any grubby toxic materials. The problem, it seems, is with China, and it’s their fault.
India however seems to be taking a different viewpoint. In this story, picked up from the Hindustan Times of Delhi, and with the basic theme being echoed by Dezan Shira & Associates staff on the ground, Indian consumers appear to be blaming the rapacious nature of Indian importers, and not the Chinese manufacturers. Read on:
Vincent Fernandes, 33, makes a living smuggling cheap, unbranded bi-cycles, toys, mobile phones and laptops from China and selling them as branded ones to dealers in Versova and Colaba, who then re-sell them to retail outlets.
By cutting corners on the original product’s quality and evading import duties, he can sell the goods dirt-cheap. Boasting offices in China’s Guangdong province, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Goa, he makes money hand over fist.
His goods are not the only things that are counterfeit. So is his name. For obvious reasons, he did not want his real name to be used when we spoke to him in a Dongguan hotel.
“The demand for a Rado watch or Nokia mobile phone among Indian customers is tremendous,” he said. “But people always have one eye on the price.”
In the first six months of 2007, China sold goods worth $10.24 billion to Indians. But trade sources say the figure is actually twice that.
Amoral businessmen like Fernandes are able to rake in money because there is a huge pool of price-conscious but poorly informed customers who want to flaunt brand names, say domestic producers. Regulation and customs surveillance are also not stringent enough, they say.
“Chinese exporters alone are not to blame,” said Ashok Jain, secretary of the All India Toy Manufacturers’ Association. “Our importers are also asking them to supply cheap goods.”
Importers are just responding to consumer demand for attractive, but cheap products, which may be unsafe.
“In India people buy anything that comes cheap,” said Mohan Gurnani, president of the Federation of Associations of Maharashtra. “Quality is not an issue here.”
But China supplies an estimated one-third of the world’s household products, and it would be inaccurate to label all of them sub-standard. Most high-end products go to Europe, not India, say traders.
“There are branded Chinese items — Haier is a fine example,” said Rajesh Bhagat, managing director of IMTEX, which organises trade fairs of Chinese products. “But we should identify those products and pay for them.”
With organised retailing expanding, the flood of inferior products might abate, he said.
There are political issues within this article as well - especially within the last sentence. Opening up the retail sector to foreign investment has long been a contencious issue in India, however with quality standards now needing to be put into place to combat the wiles of devious Indian importers, perhaps the international retailers may see some glimmer of hope on the horizon that they may be allowed access on the grounds of better infrastructure capabilities discouraging dubious products reaching Indian consumers.
Far more impressive to my mind however is the Indian pragmatism - if a defective product has reached its consumers, then somewhere an Indian is culpable. It’s really, a rather more honest, and easy to deal with matter than simply just pointing your fingers back at Chinese manufacturers. They are just selling, and if the US wants to continue to have it cheap products but at sensible levels of hygiene and standards, well they are just going to have to learn to accept, that they too, have responsibility. And that will mean higher prices.
India also has 1.3 billion people, and a boost to increase quality control personnel at customs cannot be long in the pipeline. America - are you listening ? Because with Mike Tyson retired and apparently bankrupt we’d love to see him made head of Import Quality in the US….
