India hikes tariff, US apples, almonds hit: India to get $217mn additional revenue

New Delhi: After extending the deadline several times, India has decided to impose additional customs duties on 29 US products, including almond, apples, walnut and pulses, with effect from June 16, making them expensive for domestic consumers, sources said.

A notification with this regard will be issued by the finance ministry soon, they added.

The move will hurt American exporters of these 29 items as they will have to pay higher duties on these products, making those items costlier in the Indian markets. The country would get about $217 million additional revenue from such imports.

The government had on June 21, 2018, decided to impose these duties in retaliation to the US decision of significantly hiking customs duties on certain steel and aluminum products.

India has informed the US about its decision to go ahead with the retaliatory duties, the sources said. America had in March last year imposed 25 per cent tariff on steel and a 10 per cent import duty on aluminum products. Earlier, there was no duty on these goods.

As India is one of the major exporters of these items to the US, the move has revenue implication of about $240 million on domestic steel and aluminum products.

India extended the deadline for imposition of these duties multiple times in the hope that some solution would emerge during a negotiation between India and the US on a proposed trade package. But those negotiations came to a halt following the decision of the US to withdraw export incentives to Indian exporters under its Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) programme. These benefits were rolled back from June 5. It will impact goods worth $5.5 billion from India to America. As part of the imposition of higher import duties, India has notified higher tariffs on several goods.