Take steps to resolve this, otherwise it will have long-term impact on ‘Make in India’ policy

January 23, 2017

Sanjeev Ranjan, MD, ICAI recently expressed to a leading national daily that copper markets in 2017 will continue to see an uptrend fueled by continued growth in demand from countries like China, India and those from South East Asia. This is clearly reflected in increasing copper prices which has gone up by more than 19 percent, he said. As per Mr. ranjan, the impact of demonetisation was a concern in Nov-Dec of 2016 but going forward the industry should see an improvement in markets and subsequent demand with more cash flowing back into the system.

He further wrote in the column that Indian exports of manufactured and engineering goods continue to be extremely poor. Whereas FTAs has led to tax free imports from countries in ASEAN & Japan which are proving to be cheaper than domestically produced goods and this is impacting the domestic manufacturing sector like copper tubes, copper rods, motors and wire/cable markets quite adversely. The main reason for this is the inverted duty structure which we have in place – domestic manufacturers of refined copper end up paying higher duty for their inputs (copper concentrates) compared to imported finished products, he feels. This is a serious concern as it may render domestic manufacturing to be uncompetitive and is likely to impact the ‘Make in India’ policy in the long run.