CBEC provides deeper tariff concessions to goods imported from ASEAN

The Dollar Business Bureau

The CBEC in its latest notification no., 63/2016 dated Dec 31, 2016 makes amendment to its previous notification 46/2011-Customs dated 01.06.2011 to provide deeper tariff concessions to specified goods imported from Philippines and other ASEAN countries under the India-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement beginning Jan 1, 2017.

This could have a pronounced effect with the conclusion of the current financial year since tariff has been eliminated on as many as 800 items under 1252 tariff lines. 

Also, according to reports published by Assocham, Indian tariff levels are higher than the tariffs of ASEAN, therefore India has relatively less to gain from its trade in goods with the 10 countries of ASEAN. As per the same report India’s imports from the ASEAN countries rose over 33% to $40 bn since the start of its trade agreement in Jan 2010. However, its exports stagnated at $25 billion.

Since the time the FTA has been in operation, exports to ASEAN countries decreased to 9.6% from 10.3% which could be attributed to a slowdown in the global economy. It remains to be seen if the exports with ASEAN too increase with an increase in the tariff concessions bringing some movement in its stagnated numbers.