The Hindu Business Line : Edible items from Singapore beckon

Chemicals, currently in the duty range of 3 per cent to 20 per cent would get the duty level reduced in five stages to become zero duty items from December 1, 2011.

G. Srinivasan

New Delhi, Dec. 22 For Indian gourmets looking for edible items from Singapore duty-free, the wish-list is wrapped. Malted milk including powder and malt extract for infant use and put up for retail sale, mixes and doughs for the preparation of baker’s wares, filled cocoa and cocoa preparations (blacks, slabs/bars), uncooked pasta, corn flakes, bulgar wheat and mineral waters and aerated waters could be imported at zero duty from Singapore after December 1, 2011.

These are some of the food items which currently attract 30 per cent import duty that form part of the first tranche of duty elimination/reduction of 307 items to undergo five- phase duty cuts effective from January 15, 2008 to December 1, 2011 as per the Protocol amending the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement India and Singapore signed here on December 20. In the first phase, duty on these products would come down to 24 per cent from mid-January 2008 and to 18 per cent from December 1, 2008, to 12 per cent from December 1, 2009 and to 6 per cent from December 1, 2010, before being completely shorn of duty from December 1, 2011.

Slag, dross (other than granulated slag), scaling and other waste from the manufacture of iron and steel, particularly converted slag (scull) of blast furnace and other currently in the restricted list with an MFN tariff of 5 per cent could in five phases be imported duty-free from Singapore from December 1, 2011.

chemicals

Similarly, chemicals, currently in the duty range of 3 per cent to 20 per cent would get the duty level reduced in five stages to become zero duty items from December 1, 2011. They include, among others, phenols, liquefied butanes, vinyl chloride, ethyl acetates, paints and varnishes based on polyesters, other paint varnish including enamel, lacquers based on synthetic polymers, chemically manufactured natural polymers, printing ink black, other printing ink, shampoos, personal deodorants and anti-perspirants, cosmetic and toilet preparations, other organic surface-active agents and washing preparations put up for retail sale, fungicides, other polyether, cellulose acetate non-plasticised, silk yarn and yarn spun from silk waste put up for retail sale, artificial filament tow, knitted or crocheted fabrics, fabrics of artificial fibre, other made up articles, ferro-silicon containing 55 per cent silicon, waste and scrap of cast iron, stainless steel, other alloy steel, tinned iron or steel, flanges of stainless steel, doors, windows and the frames and thresholds for doors, copper-zinc based alloys, aluminium waste and scrap, other articles of aluminium, tools for pressing, stamping and punching, other interchangeable tools, automatic door closers, other mountings fittings and smaller articles suitable for buildings, other packing accessories, parts of pumps, parts suitable for use solely with sparking in internal combustion piston engines other than parts for aircraft engines, ball bearings, lithium, gear boxes, rangefinders, photographic enlargers (other than cinematographic) enlargers and reducers, other slide fasteners and liquid meters.

tariff reduction

For another 135 products, tariff reduction from a high of 80 per cent to zero begins in nine phases from January 15. Animal or vegetable fats and oils and other fractions (edible grade), boiled, oxidised, dehydrated, sulphurised, blown, polymerised by heat excluding hydrogenated, currently at a high duty level of 80 per cent would come down to zero duty by December 1, 2015. Other products in this category include other bread, pastry, rice preparations and similar products, sweetened and flavoured waters, linear low density polyethylene, polypropylene, moulding powders, other tubes, pipes and hoses, plastic or regenerated cellulose, textured yarn of nylon, polyester, monofilament, fabrics of cotton, other pumps, audio-frequency electric amplifiers, other sound reproducing apparatus, ribbons, other wooden furniture, insecticides, articles of vulcanised rubber other than hard rubber, winding wire of copper and wooden frontier of a kind used in office.

For another 97 products whose duty would be slashed in nine equal instalments beginning from January 15, 2008 to last December 1, 2015, no detail is available in the list put out by the Department of Commerce in its official Web site.

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