Traders’ body CAIT on Tuesday said India’s retail trade has incurred a whopping loss of USD 30 billion in the last fortnight alone due to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), the country’s retail sector comprising 70 million small medium and big traders employing 450 million people, does a monthly business of approximately USD 70 billion, and is one of the hardest hit due to the pandemic.
CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said even if global economies and other sectors of the Indian economy bounce back sooner than expected, Indian traders are likely to pay a higher price and the strenuous ramifications will reverberate for a much longer time than expected.
“Most important reason for this devastating situation is the fact that a majority of the Indian traders have had to down shutters or curtail operations for health reasons, while still paying employees salaries and that’s apart from meeting costs for rentals, taxes and other levies,” he said.
