New Delhi: The Central government, while briefing the Parliament on Wednesday, said that India has not imposed any country-specific ban on imports, adding that as per the import policy of the Government, all goods imported into India are subject to domestic laws, rules, orders, regulations, technical specifications, environment and safety norms that are notified from time to time. The statement was made by the Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal in the Lok Sabha.
In response to a question raised by MP Gopal Chinnaya Sethi on whether the Government has taken or proposes to take any steps to impose a ban on Chinese products, Minister Goyal said, "India has not imposed any country-specific ban on the import, adding that as per the import policy of the Government, all goods imported into India are subject to domestic laws, rules, orders, regulations, technical specifications, environment and safety norms that are notified from time to Time".
He told the parliament that the government takes appropriate action including a ban on goods if they are found to violate these regulations or have implications for national security. India and China, are both members of the WTO, and any trade restriction imposed must be WTO compliant. Government has from time to time reviewed and taken WTO-compliant measures to address the concerns raised by various stakeholders to have a holistic global trade strategy said, Goyal.
"The import policy of Government for goods is ‘free’ except when regulated by way of ‘Prohibition’, ‘Restriction’ and ‘Exclusive Trading’ through State Trading enterprises (STEs) on the grounds of (i) public morals, (ii) protection of human, animal or plant life and health, (iii) protection of patents and copyrights, (iv) protection of national treasures of artistic, historical and archaeological value, (v) conservation of exhaustible resources; (vi) prevention of trade in fissionable materials, (vii) of traffic in arms, ammunition, and implements of war", he added.
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The Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) is empowered to recommend restrictions on the import of a product by the imposition of additional duty or quantitative restrictions (QRs) if Indian the industry is ‘seriously injured’ or ‘threatened with injury’ on account of a surge in imports or unfair trade practices.
The Commerce minister informed the Parliament that currently, 61 Anti-dumping measures and 4 countervailing duty measures are in force on Chinese products. Some examples of industry-specific measures are -For toys, the Government issued the Toys (Quality Control) Order, 2020 on 25 Feb 2020 through which toys have been brought under compulsory Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification with effect from 1 Jan 2021.
He noted that this QCO is equally applicable to domestic manufacturers as well as foreign manufacturers who intend to export their toys to India. As per this QCO, toys must conform to Indian standards and bear the standard ISI mark under license from BIS and no person shall manufacture, import, distribute, sell, hire, lease, store or exhibit for sale any toys without the ISI mark.
Similarly, compulsory registration under “Electronics and IT Goods (Requirement of Compulsory Registration) Order 2012” addresses safety standards for 63 notified electronic products including mobile phones. The stock, sale, import, manufacture, etc. without having valid Registration and Standard Mark of these items are prohibited.
Minister Goyal underlined that to support and expand domestic capacities, the Government has implemented policies to promote domestic manufacturing like the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Schemes in line with the Atmanirbhar Bharat policy to reduce dependence on imports, at an estimated outlay of Rs. 1,97,000 cr fully funded by the Central Government covering inter-alia sectors such as drug intermediates and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, medical devices, telecom, and networking products, etc.
In addition, to promote the semiconductor industry, the Union minister of commerce said that the Government has formulated a scheme amounting to Rs. 76,000 cr. (ANI)
