India plans to take a longer period to eliminate tariff with China to give the domestic industry enough time to adjust to a trade deal with China. 

New Delhi:India plans to offer tariff elimination on more than 70% traded goods with China over an extended period of time under the ongoing negotiations for a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement.

“One cannot go beyond 6% offer on either side of common concession. For example, if common concession is decided at 80% for all countries, then we cannot offer China tariff elimination of less than 74%,” a government official said, requesting anonymity.

The common concession of tariff lines is the minimum tariff elimination that a country has to offer under RCEP, which is yet to be finalized. India plans to take a longer period to eliminate tariff with China, say up to 30 years, to give the worried domestic industry enough time to adjust to a trade deal with China.

Steel industry is particularly worried as China has been dumping iron and steel products in India at a much lower price than the domestic industry can supply at. India has often resorted to anti-dumping measures to protect domestic industry from the onslaught of cheap imports from China.

“Other countries want a shorter phasing out period of tariffs; we want a longer phasing out period. Others say what you give to one country, you have to give to everybody, which we don’t agree to,” the official said, pointing at the current level of discussions at RCEP among member countries.

| Continue to orginal article  |  Dec 19, 2016 |