Government imposes import restrictions on colour TV sets

This move is aimed at promoting local manufacturing and also to cut shipments coming in from China.

The Indian government has imposed restrictions on colour TV imports and this was announced in an announcement made by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) today. This move is largely aimed at promoting local manufacturing and to curb “inbound shipments of non-essential items” from countries like China.

The DGFT notification read - “Import policy of colour television.....is amended from free to restricted”.

So what does this mean?

Putting an item under a restricted category of imports means that whoever wants to import that particular commodity will first have to seek a license from the commerce ministry’s DGFT for imports.

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The notification states that the procedure for the grant of license will be separately issued by the DGFT.

The restrictions have been imposed on TV sets with screen sizes starting from 36cm (14 inches approx) right up to 105cm (41 inches approx) and bigger. Liquid crystal display television set of screen size below 63cm (24 inches approx) is also restricted as stated in the notification. There is another category simply listed as ‘Other’ (with exim code 85287219) which is also listed as restricted but there are no more details about this.

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For India, China is the largest exporter of TV sets. Besides China, countries like Vietnam, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Korea, Indonesia, Germany and Thailand are other countries that export TVs to India.

(With agency inputs)