News The Indian Government launched on the 31th of March, 1999 its new Exim policy which already came into force with the new fiscal year on 1st of April, 1999. The new Exim policy freed import of 894 items of consumers goods, agricultural products and textiles from licensing (SIL) and removed another 414 items from the "restricted" list, allowing these to be imported against Special Import Licence. These licences can be procured in the market by importers at a premium of approximately 15% of the CIF value of imports.
The peak rate of the basic import tariff remains at a high 40% applicable to most consumers goods (watch products), together with various additional taxes and duties.
As far as watch products are concerned, wrist watches costing more than 35,000 Rupies (approx US$ 820.-) can now be imported without licence while imports of wrist watches costing less than 35,000 Rupies are allowed against Special Import Licence. Pocket watches costing less than 5,000 Rupies can be imported with SIL, while pocket watches costing more than 5,000 Rupies have been removed from the SIL list.
With the new Exim policy, the Indian Governement has sought to hasten the integration of the Indian economy in the global economy by removing physical controls on imports at a much faster pace than was dictated by India's commitments to the WTO and trade partners including Switzerland. In fact most of India's international commitments (including the Swiss-Indian bilateral agreement notified to the WTO in May 1997) require it to remove licensing curbs on imports by 2003.
This new Exim policy is of course most welcome. However, one should not forget that customs duties and other taxes on imported watch products remain altogether at a high level (approx. 80%) and therefore continue to be an important import barrier.
April 15, 1999
