No Duty Rollback On Assembled Cars.

The government has turned down a fresh plea to roll back the differential duty structure for assembled vehicles. The demand which first came from the European Union was raised afresh by German Chancellor Angela Merkel during her trip to India last fortnight.

Government officials, however, said that the finance ministry has clearly conveyed to EU as well as other ministries which have been lobbying against the new regime that the possibility of a review does not exist now. "After all, were are trying to plug a loophole that was resulting in the government losing several crores of rupees. So, there is no question of reviewing it," said an official. Along with changing the definition of completely knock down (CKD) units, which are assembled in India, the government had increased the duty to 60% which was later cut to 30%. Pre-budget the tariff was 10%. Separately, officials said that in the free trade pact being negotiated with EU the government was unlikely to opt for an immediate tariff cut.

Import duty on fully-built cars currently stands at 60%, which finally bulges to around 110% after the addition of counter-vailing duty (CVD), VAT and other levies. Industry body SIAM had made a strong pitch to the Commerce Ministry, opposing move to remove car imports from the negative list.

The sources said that the stand has been taken keeping in mind the Autmotive Mission Plan (AMP) 2006-16 that aims to create new jobs in the automobile industry as well as bring in higher investments and latest technology. A softening of stand and lowering of duty could impact the objectives enshrined in the AMP, including the flow of technology.

But while the Government's decision comes in as a relief to domestic players, the issue had virtually split the industry.

While Mahindra & Mahindras automotive head Pawan Goenka, who is also the president of industry body SIAM, had opposed any move to cut the duty on imported cars, several members, mainly foreign luxury car makers such as Audi, Mercedes and BMW, batted for lower tariffs.

Players manufacuring in India, including some of the foreign players who manufacture here and operate in the lower-end of the market, spoke against lowering of tariffs, arguing that cheaper shipments into the country would disincentivise local manufacturing and will not result in job creation. The government has supported this point of view.

The AMP document explicitly cites the proposed India-EU FTA along with others such as Asean, South Korea and Japan where the protection would be available. In addition, AMP explicitly lists 77 items to be put on the negative list, and these include products such as engines and several components. These items would be excluded from any tariff reduction commitments that India may undertake.

Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com