India holds significant export potential in toy sector, says commerce secy

Stressing upon India's significant export potential in the toy sector, Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan on Monday highlighted the need to create enabling environment for potential exporters from the segment to improve productivity.

Participating in a webinar on 'Scaling up Toy Exports from India', Wadhawan said the government intends to promote Toy clusters through innovative and creative methods.

"Toy manufacturing clusters should be developed by State Governments to attract international players to set up their manufacturing base in India," he said.

The Secretary also emphasised on the promotion of toy-based tourism, local toy banks and libraries.

He further said that the government will make all efforts to create a comparative environment, a level-playing field against unfair competition from cheap and substandard imports in promoting this endeavour. He also urged the industry to identify and raise specific issues of ease of doing business impacting toy exports that can be ironed out with the help of concerned Departments in the Government.

Wadhawan assured full support of the Department of Commerce in ensuring the promotion of Indian toys, domestically and globally, in an early timeframe.

Participating in a Webinar on 'Success Stories of Entrepreneurs working with Traditional Toy Clusters' during the India Toy Fair-2021, Textile Secretary U P Singh stated that toys have been identified as one of the 24 key sectors under Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.

He said a National Action Plan for Toys has been created by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) which calls to action many central Ministries including Textiles, MSME, I&B, Education, DPIIT under the Ministry of Commerce and other departments to nurture and promote the industry.

Singh said Toycathon-2021 was conceived to challenge India's innovative minds to conceptualize novel Toy and Games and to crowdsource solutions to different problems faced by the toy industry.