Budget: Govt proposes to reduce customs duty on certain 'critical' chemicals to 'enhance domestic value addition'

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday presented the Union Budget 2022-23 in Parliament and announced that the government proposes to reduce the customs duty on certain critical chemicals namely, methanol, acetic acid and heavy feedstocks for petroleum refining while increasing the duty on sodium cyanide for which adequate domestic capacity exists.

She said that this will be done to enhance the domestic value addition.

The minister announced that the Government proposes to phase out the concessional rates in capital goods and project imports gradually and apply a moderate tariff of 7.5 per cent. She clarified that certain exemptions for advanced machineries that are not manufactured within the country shall continue.

Sitharaman further announced that the government would introduce a few exemptions in cases like specialised castings, ball screws and linear motion guide to encourage domestic manufacturing of capital goods.

She stated, "our experience suggests that reasonable tariffs are conducive to the growth of domestic industry and 'Make in India' without significantly impacting the cost of essential imports" and pointed out that several duty exemptions granted to capital goods in various sectors such as power, fertilisers, textiles among others have hindered the growth of the domestic capital goods industry.

She said that project import duty concessions have also deprived the local producers of a level playing field in certain areas like coal mining, power generation among others.

( With inputs from ANI )

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