India's Import Regime remains Complex - WTO Report
THE WTO report on the Trade Policy Review of India published recently states:
India's trade policy is largely driven by domestic supply considerations and also intended to attain short-term objectives, such as containing fluctuations in commodity prices. This requires constant fine-tuning of policies, for example, through notifications by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) and Customs, rendering the trade regime less predictable and creating additional costs.
India is an original Member of the WTO. India is a strong advocate of the multilateral trading system and has historically been party to few regional trade agreements. However, despite India's reservations, regionalism has increasingly become an element of its overall trade policy objective of enhanced market access for its exports. This is evidenced by the 15 agreements currently in force and its involvement in the negotiation of other agreements.
India's trade policy objectives are stipulated in its Foreign Trade Policy (FTP), which is issued every five years, but revised periodically to take into account internal and external factors. The new 2015-20 FTP, released on 1 April 2015, aims to make India a significant participant in international trade and to raise its share of global exports to 3.5% in 2020. This is expected to be achieved by providing a sustainable and stable policy environment for foreign merchandise and services trade; linking rules, procedures and incentives for trade with other recent initiatives such as "make in India", "digital India" and "skills India"; promoting the diversification of India's exports by assisting key sectors to become more competitive; and creating an architecture for India's engagement with key regions of the world.
India has continued to streamline customs procedures and implement trade-facilitation measures. With a view to facilitating trade, India adopted the use of self-assessment in its customs procedures in 2011, and around 97.6% of India's imports were processed via the risk management system. Despite the implementation of these measures, India's import regime remains complex, especially its licensing and permit system, and its tariff structure, which has multiple exemptions, with rates varying according to product, user or specific export promotion programme.
In general, the value of imports is based on the transaction value. A landing charge (for loading, unloading, and handling) of 1% is added to the c.i.f. value, to calculate the transaction value. India uses "tariff values" (reference prices), to calculate customs duty levied on imports of certain palm oils, crude soybean oil, poppy seeds, brass scrap, gold, silver, and areca nuts. These reference prices are, in principle, revised every two weeks and adjusted to align them with international market prices.
India's tariff is announced in the annual Budget; however, individual tariff rates may be changed during the fiscal year. In addition to the standard tariff rate, importers are required to pay an additional duty and a special additional duty instead of local taxes. To determine the "effective" applied tariff rate (i.e. basic duties and other customs duties) on a particular product, separate customs and excise tax schedules must be consulted, which adds to the complexity of the tariff. India's tariff comprises mainly ad valorem rates (around 94% of tariff lines), levied on the c.i.f. value of imports, and some alternate or specific duties (6.1% of tariff lines).
India's WTO bound tariff levels are much higher than the applied rates, especially for many agricultural products. These gaps allow the Government to modify tariff rates in response to domestic and international market conditions, but at the same time, they reduce tariff predictability.
India is one of the most active users of anti-dumping measures among WTO Members; it initiated more than 80 anti-dumping investigations against 23 trading partners between 2011 and 2014. Indian legislation provides for levying anti-dumping duty retrospectively, where it is deemed that there is a history of dumping that caused the injury or when the injury is caused by massive dumping, in a relatively short time. The retrospective application may not go beyond 90 days of the date of imposition of a provisional duty. No retrospective application prior to the date of initiation of an investigation is allowed. The authorities state that no retrospective application of duties took place during the period under review.