The government has immediately restricted the import of laptops, tablets and personal computers in a bid to boost local manufacturing, according to a government notification issued on Thursday.
“They can be imported as long as they hold a valid restricted import license,” the notice said.
From April to June, the import value of electronic products including laptops, tablets and personal computers was US$19.7 billion (approximately 1,629.6 billion rupees), a year-on-year increase of 6.25%. Imports of electronic products account for 7% to 10% of the country’s total merchandise imports.
“The spirit of the move is to push manufacturing to India. It’s not a push, it’s a nudge,” said Ali Akhtar Jafri, former director general of electronics industry body MAIT.
The government has been trying to boost local manufacturing by offering production-related incentives in more than two dozen industries, including electronics.
It extended the deadline for companies to apply for the $2 billion (approximately Rs. 16,550 crore) manufacturing incentive scheme to attract large investments in IT hardware manufacturing, which covers products such as laptops, tablets, PCs and servers.
The incentive scheme is crucial to India’s ambition to become a global electronics supply chain powerhouse, with the country aiming to reach an annual output value of $300 billion (approximately Rs 24,814 billion) by 2026.
Dell, Acer, Samsung, LG Electronics, Apple, Lenovo and HP are the major companies selling laptops in the Indian market, a large part of which is imported from countries such as China.
Affected by this news, the share price of Indian electronics manufacturer Dixon Technologies rose more than 5%.
Madhavi Arora, economist at Emkay Global, said the aim appeared to be “to replace certain goods that are imported in large quantities”.
Laptops, tablets and PCs account for about 1.5% of the country’s total annual imports, with nearly half purchased from China, government data shows.
The government has imposed high tariffs on products such as mobile phones in the past to stimulate domestic output.
The company produced mobile phones worth $38 billion (roughly Rs. 3,143.5 billion) in the country last year, compared with only $4 billion in local production of laptops and tablets, India’s National Bureau of Statistics estimates. Approximately 331 billion rupees). Industry body Indian Cellular and Electronics Association.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
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