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Cashew industry is not much enthused by the budget announcement to reduce the Customs duty on raw cashew from 5 per cent to 2.5 per cent, as it had expected a complete rollback of the duty. Rather the industry has asked for simplification of the processes related to raw cashew imports.
Ganesh Kamath of the Kanhangad-based Vittal Cashew Industry told BusinessLine that the move to reduce the Customs duty to 2.5 per cent from 5 per cent will not help bring much revenue to the Government.
Majority of imports – almost to the tune of around 70 per cent – is happening from the least developed countries (LDCs) through the Duty Free Tariff Preference (DFTP) scheme. Cashew processors need not pay any duty for imports from LDCs.
Many of those cashew processors, who import the commodity from other origins than LDCs, prefer to bring it under the advance licence scheme for export.
Terming the move to reduce the duty as a positive development, Prakash Kalbavi, proprietor of the Mangaluru-based Kalbavi Cashews and former president of Karnataka Cashew Manufacturers’ Association, said the industry would have been happy if the duty was zero. He said that the imports from countries such as Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria attract Customs duty.
He said that the cashew processing industry is going through a very difficult time in sourcing its raw material and heavily dependent on imports to keep the employment round the year.
“From that perspective we were looking at the Government encouraging us to import without any duty and provide employment to our workers. This reduction of 5 per cent to 2.5 per cent will largely benefit industry, no doubt, but we are still hopeful that he will ultimately roll it back to zero,” he said.
Stressing the need for a simplified customs clearance procedure for raw cashew, Kamath said those who import from LDCs need to provide the certificates for LDCs, and these certificates should be authorised by two persons. This is creating hurdle for the smooth import of this cargo that is giving jobs to many women.
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