Fun Zoo Toys is an Indian manufacturing success story. The maker of heart-shaped cushions and ¡°Little Ganesha¡± dolls started out as a family business in 1979 and has grown to be one of the nation¡¯s major manufacturers of fluffy toys.
Sales doubled after Prime Minister Narendra Modi¡¯s ¡°Made-in-India¡± push saw import duties on toys ramped up from 20% to 70% over three years to 2023. But that¡¯s just half of the story: The production surge to meet those sales wouldn¡¯t have been possible without raw materials such as metallic pins, integrated circuits and LEDs imported from China.
¡°We have just introduced electronic toys and the challenge we are facing is that mini toy motors used in that are not being made here,¡± says Naresh Kumar Gupta who runs the company near New Delhi with his wife Santosh Gupta. ¡°Making metallic pins which are fixed along with the gears and motors to make the rotations is a challenge here.¡±
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