India: Centre Not Serious About Raising Apple Import Duty.

Key apple-producing state Himachal Pradesh has alleged that the Centre is not serious about protecting the interest of farmers by hiking import duty on the fruit, despite lower cost apples from China and the US hurting the domestic industry.
"The Centre is not serious about hiking the import duty on apples coming from outside to safeguard the interests of local growers and trying to wriggle out of the issue by referring to certain clauses of the World Trade Organisation (WTO)," State Horticulture Minister Narinder Bragta said.

Bragta, in a letter to Commerce and Industries Minister Anand Sharma, had urged him to get apples included in the category of special products. However, he claimed that Sharma, in his reply, expressed his inability to get the import duty raised and quoted certain clauses of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariff (GATT) and the WTO to wash his hands of the issue. Bragta said he had also made a plea to Union Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Minister Virbhadra Singh to get the import duty on apples raised from 50 per cent at present.
However, the UPA government is not interested in helping apple growers of Himachal and other hill states, he alleged.

The major apple-growing states of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu & Kashmir and North-Eastern states had recently drawn the attention of Sharma about the dumping of apples in India by developed countries like China and the US. They said that this had led to a crash in the apple market at home, resulting in huge losses to native apple growers. Apple production in Himachal Pradesh has gone down substantially to about one crore boxes (one box comprising 20-22 kg) this year in comparison to a record over four crore boxes last year. An influx of apples from abroad has further dented the earnings of native farmers.

Source : freshplaza.com