India Mulls another Postponement of Retaliatory Duties on US

New Date may be 1 May instead of 1 April

The US decision to withdraw the tariff concessions made available to India under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) has prompted the Commerce Ministry to deliberate upon whether it should finally impose retaliatory duties on US goods that it had announced in June 2018 but deferred several times.

“There are discussions on putting off retaliatory duties scheduled to be implemented on April 1 by about a month till early May. If the US goes ahead with its decision to withdraw GSP in May as planned, India can simultaneously impose its retaliatory duties although the two are not related,” a government official told BusinessLine. The United States Trade Representative’s office (USTR) had announced on Monday the government's decision to withdraw GSP status for India which allowed duty-free access for about 3,500 items from India into the American market.

Although India was the largest beneficiary of the scheme designed for developing countries with about $5.6 billion of its exports getting covered in 2017-18, the government said the actual benefit was much lower at about $190 million. The withdrawal will take effect in 60 days.

Turkey is also covered with India for GSP withdrawal by US.