By Neelam Rahim

India overtakes the Philippines in the race to catch China as the first US festival goods supply.

In conversation with Radio Islam International, Senior Research Fellow at Institute for Global Dialogue, Sanusha Naidu, said India has been supplying the US market with goods ranging from Christmas decorations and other sources of goods.

According to Sanusha, this has become competitive with other Asian exporters to the US market.

These goods have touched the value of 20 million US Dollars in the last month. This was almost triple the value from a year ago.

Sanusha said the idea is that India is becoming the next China in terms of exporting manufactured goods. Also, China is going through structural changes with its labour value increase. And the fact that China has been through severe lockdowns due to Covid-19, which is now disrupting the supply chain to markets like the US.

Bollywood star fades as Indians turn to alternatives like Amazon Prime. Sanusha said this is linked to the fact that during Covid-19, Bollywood became a much less exciting space for younger Indian people.

Meanwhile, China agrees to pay for Russian gas in roubles and yuan.

According to Sanusha, analysts have argued that Russia is pushing to reduce reliance on the US dollar.

She said boosting ties with China and using currency swops challenges the dollar’s dominance.

Sanusha added that it has always been Putin’s intention that there should be less dollar domination in the financial markets.

Listen to the Asia Pacific Report on Radio Islam’s podcast below.