September 29: The PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Monday demanded a hike in import duty on newsprint to check unhealthy inflow of the material into the country and to protect the interests of domestic industry. The chamber suggested a special customs duty of 5 per cent and special additional duty of 4 per cent on newsprint to provide level playing field to domestic industry. In order to reduce the gap between imported paper and newsprint the customs duty on newsprint should be rolled back to 10 per cent, a PHDCCI release said.Paper industry has been adversely affected by large quantity of writing and printing paper imports into the country in the guise of newsprint, the chamber said.
As the domestic newsprint was subjected to sales tax and other local levies, the imported material should be subjected to special customs duty and sad in all fairness, phdcci said.
The chamber has suggested withdrawal of five per cent customs duty on imported raw materials (waste paper) to strengthen domestic unitsdepending on imports.
It has also demanded that the light weighted loaded paper be treated differently from newsprint (standard/glazed) and existing duty of five per cent be rolled back and maintained at the level of paper.
Phdcci has said glazed newsprint should be subject to same duty as that of standard newsprint.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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