UNFAIR:  Hemant Mota, a partner at a garment company, says the Indian cloth market heavily depends on Chinese raw materials.  PIC/VARUN SINGH

It's not just the Chinese who'll pay the cost for the Beijing Olympics. You'll do too.

Every year, India buys materials for clothes like dyes, chemicals, yarns, accessories and washing and bleaching powders from China. But this year, as a pollution control measure to prepare for the Olympics, China had shut down the factories manufacturing these materials.

This has forced Indian manufacturers to buy the materials from Europe and UK, which means you'll have to pay 20 per cent more for clothes this Diwali.

Said Hemant Mota, a partner at Kittens, a leading city-based garment company, "The Indian cloth market heavily depends on Chinese raw materials. They export materials at half the prices of others."

Jigar Badani, a Lower Parel-based garment manufacturer, added, "The cloth prices will go up by at least 20 per cent due to this situation."

The Chinese government had shut down the materials-manufacturing factories from July until the end of the Games.

India imports most its materials during this phase. "Every brand big or small had to procure the materials from other countries at costlier rates. The production has also been delayed," said Mota.

Manufacturers feel they should have been prepared for the situation.

"We should not have relied so heavily on the Chinese goods. Our associations are now trying to find ways to buy the raw material at fairer prices," added Mota.

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