Customs duty hikes announced on various products reflect the impact of “MAKE IN INDIA” on policy front

Finance minister Arun Jaitley has designed the budget for 2018-19 planned a surge in customs duty on a wide array of products ranging from fruit juice to mobile phones also from incentivizing local value adding and expand the government’s Make in India program.

“I suggest enhancing customs duty on mobile phones starting from 15% to 20%, on some of their products and items to 15% and on several parts of TVs to 15%. This amount will encourage the formation of lots of jobs in the nation,” the finance minister also stated in his budget discourse on Thursday.

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Customs duties have been considerably elevated over 10 segments to disappoint imports, typically from China and other Asian republics. “Jaitley has also set his push on ‘Make in India’ and projected to augment customs duty rate on several products such as entirely hit down or semi-knocked down imports of commercial and traveller vehicles, mobile phones, watches, oils of crude and edible quality, fruit juices, scents and shampoo arrangements, footwear, imitation jewellery, amongst others to incentivise local manufacturers,” told by Abhishek Singhania of consulting company PwC.

In addition, augmenting customs duty on multiple products, Jaitley also drove up. “The major revelation of budget is the abolishment of Education Cess and Secondary and Higher Education Cess on imported goods and in its area burden of Social Welfare Surcharge which would have extra influence of 7% to be charged on total duties of customs on import of products (enhanced from prior 3% to 10%) all over the segment apart from petrol, diesel, silver, gold and mobile phones, comprising segments where cess was not leviable previously,” Singhania told.

The increase in customs duty on imported mobile phones goes up to 20% will consequence in a surge in prices of smartphones manufactured by firms such as Apple Inc and Google by almost 4%, as per to industry professionals. As per to Pankaj Mohindroo, president of the Indian Cellular Association, just nearly 81% of mobile phones traded in India are designed locally.

On the other hand, customer durables and applications manufacturers are pleased. “The company welcomes the budget, particularly the push for local manufacturing of mobile phones and consumer electronics by growing customs duty on imported goods and appliances, a further shift that is reliable with the government’s Make-in-India initiative,” said Manish Sharma, president and chief executive of Panasonic India and South-Asia, also president of the Consumer Electronics and Appliances Makers Association.

Kamal Nandi, business head and EVP, Godrej Appliances, told about soaring the lowest support value to 1.5 times the charge of farm crop would assist to enhance the revenue available for optional spends and therefore enhance the demand for customer durables. “We suppose a branch in demand mainly from the countries that are majorly reliant on agriculture such as Punjab, Haryana, Bihar, Maharashtra, and many more,” Nandi told.

Luxury traveler vehicles will become beloved as the customs duty on import of completely knocked down (CKD) types of large traveler vehicles and profitable vehicles have been augmented to 15% from the present 10%. The similar duty taxes will implement on imports of outward tires for bus and truck. The customs duty amount on the import of completely built units (CBU) of huge traveler and commercial vehicles has been augmented to 25% from the present 20%.

The customs duty on various goods such as engines, transmission, brakes, and other parts has been augmented to 15% from 7.5%. The customs duty on lithium ion batteries, utilized in electric and hybrid vehicles, has been increased from 10% to 20%.

In the food processing industry, customs duty has hopped five times to 50% for cranberry juice; however, the duty on orange juice has been increased to 35% from 30% beforehand. Thus, duty on all other fruit and vegetable juices is available now at 50%, up from 30% beforehand.

However customs duty on watches (wrist watches, smartwatches and wearable devices), sunglasses and footwear have risen up to 20% from the recent 10%, diamond jewelry and gemstones have perceived an increase to 5% from 2.5%.

The customs duty on footwear parts has been augmented from 10% to 15%, whereas that on imitation jewelry has been augmented by 5% to 20%.

Govind Shrikhande, managing director, Shoppers Stop Ltd, though considers that the surge in customs duty on perfumes, toiletries, sunglasses, and footwear by nearly 10% will have a substantial influence on values, directly driving increase and impacting depletion.