WASHINGTON, May 25: The United States filed a complaint on Friday at the World Trade Organisation against India, saying its duties on alcoholic beverages and other imports violate global trade rules.
The US action followed a similar complaint lodged by the European Union earlier this year at the Geneva-based WTO.
“India is an important export market for US products and the United States and India have successfully worked on a number of important trade issues.
However, we believe the layers of customs duties India applies to US products, in particular to wine and distilled spirits, are not in line with its WTO commitments,” said US Trade Representative Susan Schwab in a statement
“We are disappointed that WTO consultations failed to resolve our concern with the duties and that we must resort to a WTO panel.
The United States will continue to work towards a resolution of this issue with India but we must ensure a level playing field for US products around the world.” US officials said that India, on top of its basic customs tariffs, imposes an additional duty of 20 to 75 per cent on the value of imports of beer and wine and from 25 to 150 per cent on imports of distilled spirits.
Moreover, India applies an “extra additional duty” on these imports that puts the total duties in a range of 150 to 550 per cent.
US officials said that in the WTO, India committed that its tariffs on beer, wine and spirits would not exceed 150 per cent.
The additional duty and extra additional duty also apply to other US exports to India such as dairy products and, in some cases, also result in customs duties that exceed India's WTO-pledged rates.—AFP
