Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Sep 05, 2006
Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Sep 05, 2006 |
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Agri-Biz & Commodities - Agricultural Policy Pvt trade can import wheat duty-free: Pawar Our Bureau
Facilitating supply? Orders to be issued shortly; date from when it will be applicable not yet fixed. Facility to be available for next 4-5 months. Suppliers may not be interested in STC tender.
New Delhi , Sept. 4 Just a day before the State Trading Corporation of India (STC) is to open bids for its latest wheat import tender for 16.7 lakh tonnes, the Union Agriculture Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, announced that the Centre has allowed private parties to import the commodity at zero duty. "As of today, there is no import duty on wheat... This decision has already been taken and the orders will be issued shortly," the Minister told presspersons on the sidelines of a meeting of the Food and Agriculture Organisation's Sub-Committee on aquaculture here on Monday.
Limited facility
The Union Government had earlier reduced the customs duty on wheat imported on private account from 50 per cent to five per cent, which was effective from June 28 till December 31, 2006. But according to the Minister, the import duty has now been further reduced to nil and "this facility will be available for the next 4-5 months, maybe until December or January". However, when Business Line spoke to the Secretary, Food and Public Distribution, Mr T. Nanda Kumar, he said: "Only an in-principle decision (on nil duty) has been taken" and "we have not fixed the date from when this would be applicable". The "in-principle" decision to do away with the duty was apparently taken at the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Prices last Thursday.
`Surprised'
Officials in the Food Ministry, who did not want to be quoted, said they were surprised at Mr Pawar's announcement, that too a day before STC is scheduled to open bids for its mega-import tender of 16.7 lakh tonnes. Currently, unlike private traders, STC is importing wheat on behalf of the Food Corporation of India at zero duty. "Since private importers have now been placed on a level-playing field vis-à-vis STC, suppliers will have no particular interest in bidding for its tenders. The Minister's statement will certainly have an impact on Tuesday's bids," sources said. Interestingly, only on Thursday, a senior Finance Ministry official ruled out any duty-free imports of wheat by the private trade. The Union Government, he said, was not keen to have a situation "where there is too much of imports" and farmers are deterred from planting wheat in the ensuing rabi season. The contradictory statements from different official quarters has not been restricted to just the duty on private wheat imports. The Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, had told reporters that there was no move to change tariff values on edible oils. But just the very next day, his Ministry issued a notification raising the tariff value - the notional price on which import duty is levied for revenue computations - on crude soybean oil from $572 to $579 a tonne.
Related Stories: More Stories on : Wheat | Agricultural Policy
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