'Import duty hike to eliminate unorganised TV, phone players'

Aside from the fact that a host of products like television sets imported mobile phones and LED lamps are going to become expensive with a hike in their basic customs duty industry stakeholders are hopeful that the governments move will wash out the unorganised players in the consumer durables goods segment Rise in import duty will surely impact players who were sourcing and importing large percentage of their LED lamp requirements This will also impact the unorganised or unbranded segment which was importing cheap LED lamps and products from China Puneet Dhawan Senior Vice President and Business Head Lighting Orient Electric told IANS Dhawan claimed that his company has indigenised manufacturing of more than 95 per cent products and will have practically no impact due to the duty hikeOn November 15 the Finance Ministry increased the basic customs duty on a host of products including electronic items like mobile phones and televisions to curb surging imports making them more expensive and also to give a boost to the Make in India programme According to a government notification the customs duty on mobile phones has been hiked to 15 per cent TV sets and microwaves to 20 per cent video cameras to 15 per cent and LED lamps to 20 per cent Withdrawing the exemption of basic customs duty on LCD LED and OLED panels which are used in TV manufacture the government has imposed a 75 per cent dutyMany temporary players that are there in the market will suffer a setback It will be a kind of washout for them because it will be very difficult for them to survive without inputs said Riya Kabra General Manager Commercials Truvison a Europebased consumer electronics and appliances company Truvison which entered the domestic market in 2016 offers a range of consumer durables like LED TVs music systems and home appliances like air conditioners Kabra predicted that the surge in prices will be temporary and will soon stabiliseFor us the impact will be mild and short term We had already anticipated this hike for the Make in India concept There would be a price hike definitely but that would be short term By second quarter the prices will stabilise Kabra told IANS Manmohan Ganesh Chief Operating Officer BPL said that with the support of the government for domestic production the industry will mature with more manufacturers available for critical parts and will curb imports There used to be a time when we produced everything inhouse We were actually at a disadvantage when the government policies changed and allowed free or easy imports of these products The government also signed freetrade agreements wih some countries and products also came in cheap It did not make sense to manufacture a lot of products domestically Ganesh told IANSNow with some amount of support to local manufacturers we will also internally decide what more products we want to make locally he added Ganesh further said We never had the scale or the opportunity because parts were not usually available So even when we made a product we were still dependent on international sources for certain critical components He expects the industry to mature further and critical parts to be manufactured in the country Regarding the hike of product prices Dhawan said As far as hike in prices are concerned this will surely lead to pressure on these unorganised players as with the current market dynamics they will find it increasingly difficult to pass the hike on to the consumers and perhaps would have to absorb most of it Ganesh added that unless the GST rates on televisions are brought down there will be an impact on the prices for the entire industry which in turn would affect salesAt the moment so long as there is no reduction in the GST rate the prices will go up and there could be some impact on sales I do not believe it the impact will be large since it will impact the entire industry Ganesha said When costs go up for a certain brand that brand sale may come down But if the whole industry every manufacturer takes the prices up it does not mean that the customers will stop buying televisions or other appliances he addedCatch up on all the latest Mumbai National and International news hereDownload the new midday Android and iOS apps to get updates on all the latest and trending stories on the go