Import shipments originating from China and Hong Kong are held back at major Indian seaports and airports since Monday, sources with knowledge of the matter have told CNBC-TV18.

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While there is no official reason being cited for these actions, customs officials are acting on intelligence inputs after drugs, suspected to be from China, and were seized by the Tamil Nadu police in two separate incidents.

Email queries, phone calls, messages sent to Finance Minister, Revenue Secretary, Chairman CBIC remained unanswered at the time of reporting.

FULL REPORT

: Chinese imports continue to be held back at ports as Customs orders thorough examination

CNBC-TV18 spoke to Pankaj Mohindroo, Chairman, ICEA, Vinod Sharma, Chairman, National Comm On ICTE, CII, and Sharad Kumar Saraf, President, FIEO to gauge the magnitude of the problem.

On India’s move to hold back Chinese imports at various ports, airports, and land ports for checking and re-examination, Sharad Kumar Saraf said, “We are waiting for clarity from the government. We expect that clarity from commerce ministry will come either by today evening or by tomorrow morning. India needs to have a very calibrated approach. We need to ramp up our production to curb Chinese imports. We need to take trade remedies, we are exporting a lot of raw materials like cotton, chilies, etc to China at cheaper rates. India can consider levying a cess or high duties to have a competitive advantage. Banning imports is not a solution.”

Pankaj Mohindroo on the import embargo added that “ the authorized economic operators, which is a well-integrated scheme, under these large companies take just a few minutes to get their import customs cleared. This entire atmanirbharta is all okay but the problem today we are facing is that there is no clarity the Cargo handling agents are asked silly questions to just hold the imports. We as an industry are spooked. All this coming at a time when the entire economy is recovering from COVID-19 impact is silly.”

Vinod Sharma said, “No business anywhere in the world likes uncertainty. The government today is faced with a challenge of tough and crucial decision making. Our reliance on Chinese products is too huge. While we are doing the right thing in the medium term but even in short term, our Chinese suppliers are now coming back to us to check whether they should ship our new consignments or not, facing the embargo. We in the medium term are with the government on how we should shift our reliance from Chinese goods. We stand behind the fact that India needs to do much more but we should not go in for such knee-jerk reactions like holding imports. It will hurt us more than China.”

On the DPIIT list of imports where the government has categorized products under cheap and sub-standard imports, Saraf added that “ one has to see the list which is being proposed by DPIIT. The definition of cheap and sub-standard goods is also not clear. The government should give that clarity before banning these products.”

Mahindroo also added that “the idea of displaying the country of origin on an e-commerce website for the products sold is just a job which a programmer can do and to me, I doubt it will have any impact on the consumer behavior. When it comes to the DPIIT list, we are studying that list, item wise, HSN code-wise, and say for example the Lithium-ion cells that are under this list are under the sub-standard category. China is a global giant in these lithium-ion cells. To reach the level of China we need a much longer time and not hurt the industry now.”