Roll back of import duties on mobile components

As per the latest notification from Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), government has partly rolled back import duties of 29.441 percent imposed on key mobile phone components such as chargers and batteries.

In the Budget for 2016-17, Finance Minister ArunJaitley had proposed to levy a basic customs duty of 10 percent on charger or adaptor, battery, wired headsets for use in manufacture of mobile handsets including cellular phones. Another 12.5 percent countervailing duty was proposed on the same and a 4 percent Special Additional Duty, compounding the two to 29.441 percent.

However, in a reply to the debate on Finance Bill last week, Jaitley announced partial roll back of these duties.

The notification says that the basic customs duty and special additional duty has been reversed and importers of mobile handset components such as chargers, adaptors, batteries and wired headsets now need to pay only the countervailing duty of 12.5 percent. This being subject to "the importer shall comply the procedure specified in the Customs (Import of Goods at Concessional Rate of Duty for Manufacture of Excisable Goods) Rules, 2016," the notification adds.

This rollback brings them at par with the duty of the full mobile phone package.

The import duty on preform of silica for use in the manufacture of telecommunication grade optical fibres or optical fibre cables has been halved to 5 percent from 10 percent proposed by Jaitley in Budget for 2016-17.

It has also exempted components or parts, including engines of aircraft from customs duty to boost Make-in-India. There was no import duty on these parts previously as well but the CBEC conditioned the exemption to the importer submitting "documents duly certified by the Director General of Civil Aviation approved Quality Managers of aircraft maintenance organisations indicating such parts, testing equipment, tools and tool-kits."

CBEC also says that the components or parts, including engines of aircraft which are imported for maintenance, repair or overhauling by units approved by the Director General of Civil Aviation in the Ministry of Civil Aviation, have to be exported back after repairs.