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“KHL News Bureau
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Expressing grave and serious concern on surge in imports from Hong kong to India and considering this as a tactical attempt of China to keep flooding Indian market with chinese goods, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) in a communication sent to Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has asked for greater & close scrutiny of goods imports from Hong Kong in India. The CAIT has also urged that Free Trade Agreements, Treaties and other agreements related to trade & commerce with the countries which may likely to be a transshipment hub for entry of chinese goods in India should also be scrutinised and steps may be taken to plug the gaps if any. Meanwhile, the CAIT has also complimented the Government for initiating Anti-Dumping measures against Chinese measuring tapes which were being routed into India through other countries.
In its communication to Piyush Goyal, the CAIT has said that even as India reduces its trade gap with China, its balance of trade with respect to Hong Kong has changed from surplus to deficit over the last three years. India’s imports from Hong Kong were $17 billion in the previous fiscal, with electronics, telecom equipment and computer hardware being almost $8 billion of the total. This is a sharp rise from $10.67 billion imports in 2017-18 and a worrying trend of China changing its export routes even as India seeks to reduce its import dependence on China.
CAIT National President B. C. Bhartia & Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said that a close analysis of the data of imports from Hong Kong clearly suggests that, of all the major commodities in which India’s imports from China have shown a decline, a corresponding increase has been observed with Hong Kong. These commodities are mainly electrical machinery and equipment, fruits, minerals and iron and steel among others. India’s trade deficit with China has always been a major concern for India and the recent reduction in the trade gap is a tactical attempt from China to camouflage the real value of trade deficit. There seems to be a one-to-one product correlation of reduced export from China to India and corresponding increase from Hong Kong to India, during the same period. It is also important to note from the data that major products such as electrical machinery, nuclear reactors, mineral fuels and Iron and steel among others are mainly produced in China and not in Hong Kong. Hence, it seems that only the route of the commodities entering India is changing whereas the value remains the same.
Bhartia & Khandelwal also said that there is an immediate need for utmost seriousness and urgency by putting imports from Hong Kong under Government lens for close scrutiny and by adopting Anti-dumping measure for Hong Kong too, as it is believed that in the view of current situation it is China’s tactical strategy to flood India’s market with Chinese goods via Hong Kong and other South Asian countries. Imports from Nepal also should be under scrutiny in view of an increasing influence of China on Nepal.
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