Amid reports of the UK mounting pressure on the Indian government for massive tariff concessions on imports of Scotch whisky in free trade agreement negotiations, the Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverage Companies (CIABC) has strongly objected to any plans to slash Basic Customs Duty (BCD).
The CIABC has said that since the imports are already dominating the Indian market, any reduction in BCD will make matters worse and squeeze Indian products out.
“The balance of trade in alcoholic beverages is highly skewed in favour of the UK and any reduction in BCD will further worsen it,” said CIABC Director General Vinod Giri.
“India exports just Rs 5 crores worth of alcoholic beverages annually to UK against an import of Rs 1,300 crores. Exports to UK constitute only 0.2% of India’s total exports of alcoholic beverages whereas imports from UK are 24% of India’s total import of alcoholic beverages,” he said.
The CIABC has pointed out that preferential treatment to imported liquor by some state governments has created undue hurdles in growth of high quality Indian products.
“Earlier imported products did not have direct competition in India, but today there are several super premium Indian products, including Indian premium malt whisky brands such as Amrut, Paul John, Rampur etc, which are being exported to over 60 countries. They are in a nascent phase and need support from the Indian government in order to build scale and be globally competitive,” said Giri.
(Published 16 March 2021, 16:59 IST)
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