Concessional rates of duty for imports from ASEAN Countries - Philippines Added in a Complicated Notification

By Vijay Kumar

AS per Notification No. 153/2009 – Cus dated 31.12.2009, goods listed in the table – (and it is a huge list containing 1575 items with different rates of duty) when imported from ASEAN countries listed in Appendix 1 attract concessional rates of Customs duty. The countries listed there are

1. Malaysia,

2. Singapore,

3. Thailand,

4. Vietnam,

5. Myanmar,

6. Indonesia,

7. Brunei Darussalam and

8. Lao PDR.

The ASEAN Countries are:

1. Brunei Darussalam

2. Cambodia

3. Indonesia

4. India

5. Laos

6. Malaysia

7. Myanmar

8. Philippines

9. Singapore

10. Thailand

11. Vietnam

Now out of the 11 ASEAN countries, three are missing from the list for exemption. One is India and so need not be in the list. The other two are Cambodia and Philippines. Cambodia already figures in the exemption Notification No. 96/2008 – Cus for least developed countries. So the only country left out was Philippines, which the Government has now added, but with slightly higher rates of duty than those applicable for the other 8 countries. And in a very typical government”s confusing way.

Now Notification No. 153/2009 – Cus is superseded and a new Notification is issued. The new notification contains two lists of rates, one for the 8 countries already listed with the duty rates remaining same as earlier and another for Philippines.

The new notification also contains two appendices – Appendix-I containing the list of existing 8 countries and Appendix II, containing only Philippines.

The Notification also has a condition that:

The importer proves to the satisfaction of the Deputy Commissioner of Customs or Assistant Commissioner of Customs, as the case may be, that the goods in respect of which the benefit of this exemption is claimed are of the origin of the countries as mentioned in Appendix I, in accordance with provisions of the Customs Tariff [Determination of Origin of Goods under the Preferential Trade Agreement between the Governments of Member States of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Republic of India] Rules, 2009, published in the notification of the Government of India in the Ministry of Finance (Department of Revenue), No. 189/2009-Customs (N.T.), dated the 31 st December 2009.

(this condition was there in the earlier notification also)

Now you can observe that this condition is applicable only for imports from countries listed in Appendix I and not for Philippines added in Appendix II. Perhaps in the copy and paste technology, rampantly used by CBEC while manufacturing notifications, they forgot to include Appendix II in the condition. This is what happens when you make your laws so complicated.

Notification No. 46/2011-Cus., Dated: June 01, 2011