INDIA, May 2,2014 (by Ananth Krishnan, The Hindu): Chinese entrepreneur Zhao Qingfeng’s shop sits hidden in a maze of several thousand outlets at the Yiwu market – a sprawling area stretching across the size of 750 football fields that is the world’s largest commodity market. It attracts half a million businessmen from 90 countries in search of everything from computer parts and mobile phones to toy cars and plastic buckets.
Mr. Zhao’s shop,one would not expect to find in officially atheist China: on one corner is a collection of beautifully rendered images of the god Krishna as a child. There are, on the shop’s walls, framed photographs of half a dozen gods and goddesses from the Hindu pantheon: images of Ganesha, Hanuman and Saraswathi on a lotus. From this small shop in Yiwu, these images will find their way to homes and offices – and possibly even places of worship – across India. More than a hundred Indian companies buy Mr. Zhao’s products, supplying and distributing them across India – often without making their customers aware of the fact that the images that adorn their prayer rooms were all put together by Chinese workers in a factory in Zhejiang province.
Mr. Zhao’s business illustrates the depth to which Chinese manufacturing has penetrated the Indian market. Mr. Zhang was one of the earliest producers of images of Hindu gods. Today, he estimates, there are between 30 and 40 companies in China doing the same. “Many of the new factories offer poor quality, but the Indian customers are very price sensitive so business is down,” he said. Despite rising prices, however, Indian orders haven’t stopped coming. One reason: their clients say they simply have no other alternative “It’s still easier to order from China,” one trader said. “Everything is produced in bulk, and the trade is very organised. Where am I going to find such factories in India?”