Imported cars, cellphones to be costlier

Move aimed at boosting government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative

If you fancy imported items such as automobiles, bikes, watches, sunglasses and mobile phones, get ready to pay more for these.

In order to push the government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative further, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley yesterday hiked duties on a vast list of imported items, including mobile phones, automobiles, gold, diamonds, fruit and vegetable juices, and perfumes.

“There is substantial potential for domestic value addition in certain sectors, like food processing, electronics, auto components, footwear and furniture. To further incentivise the domestic value addition and Make in India in some such sectors, I propose to increase customs duty on certain items,” Jaitley said in his budget speech for 2018-19.

“This measure will promote creation of jobs in the country,” he added. Terming the Union budget for 2018- 19 “development-friendly”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said yesterday that it has focused on the needs of the rural areas and will strengthen the vision of a ‘new India’.

He said the budget has devoted attention to all sectors, ranging from agriculture to infrastructure and is “farmer- friendly, common citizen-friendly, business environment- friendly and developmentfriendly.”

In his first reaction after the presentation of the budget, Modi congratulated Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his team while emphasising that the budget prepared by them will create new opportunities for rural India.

“It will give pace to the development of the country. The government is focused not just on ‘ease of doing business’ but also on ‘ease of living’,” he said.

This is the NDA government’s last full-fledged budget before the 2019 Lok Sabha.

Subsequently, customs duty on completely knocked down (CKD) imports of motor cars and motor cycles has gone up from 10 per cent to 15 per cent.

Tyres to be taxed too

Customs duty on completely built units (CBU) imports of motor vehicles has gone up to 25 per cent from 20 per cent earlier.

Imported truck and bus radial tyres will become expensive too with a duty of 15 per cent now as against 10 per cent earlier.

Likewise, imported mobile handsets will become costlier as customs duty has been increased from 15 per cent to 20 per cent while some of their parts and accessories will now attract duty of 15 per cent.

Similarly, imported LCD/ LED/ OLED TV panels and other parts of TVs have been charged customs duty of 15 per cent.

Perfumes and imported beauty and make up preparations will now attract customs duty of 20 per cent as against 10 per cent earlier. Customs duty on wrist watches, pocket watches, smart watches/wearable devices and sunglasses have been doubled to 20 per cent. The Finance Minister also doubled customs duty on cut and polished coloured gemstones, diamonds, including lab grown diamonds semi-processed, half-cut or broken, nonindustrial diamonds to 5 per cent from 2.5 per cent earlier.

Duty on imported footwear and silk fabrics has been doubled to 20 per cent

Imported gold items, including gold plated with platinum, unwrought or in semi-manufactured form will become costlier as there will be a surcharge of 3 per cent of the aggregate duties of customs from none earlier.

However, the finance minister has given relief on select items such as imported raw cashew nuts, solar tempered glass raw materials and accessories for cochlear implants.