Pesticides Association of India, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and scores of other industry bodies have often been drawing the attention of the government to the plight of domestic industries which have been affected by the drastic reduction of import duty on various goods, particularly industrial chemicals, dyes, pharmaceuticals, synthetic detergents among others.

In this backdrop, a meeting chemicals and fertilisers minister Surjit Singh Barnala proposes to hold shortly with various industry associations and industry leaders in Delhi assumes significance. A major issue to be addressed refers to the maximisation of value-addition within the country as a result of duty structure rationalisation.

The compound annual rate of growth for industrial chemicals in India has risen from 10.5 per cent to 12.7 per cent in the 1988-98 decade, according to sources. Thiscompares favourably with the 2.8 per cent of Japan, 13 per cent of the Republic of Korea and 6.6 per cent of Malaysia, sources maintain.According to UNIDO's ``International Year Book of Industrial Statistics 1998'', India is a leading developing country of industrial chemical manufacturers. India has a share of 13.7 per cent of the total industrial chemicals production in the third world, according to UNIDO. Others in the league are the Republic of Korea (17.8 per cent) and Turkey (10.3 per cent).FICCI, meanwhile, has come out with a paper on the rationalisation of import duty. For instance, special import duty of customs should not be applied on goods which are not produced in the country, according to the paper. Another point that has been made out is that the finance ministry should ``peg the import duty to the present level for a period of two or three years''. During this period, import duty reduction should be allowed ``only for the purposes of removing existing anomalies or for other compellingeconomic reasons''.

A graded system of duty structure has also been suggested by the Federation wherein there will be three different stages: the lowest duty on raw materials, a higher duty on components and a still higher duty on finished products are the three tier-based duty structure it has suggested to the government. That anti-dumping and safeguard measures should be available to the domestic industry as fast as possible is another suggestion the paper has made.

The thrust of the paper is that whatever changes in duty structure that the government intends to make from time to time, should be made only after a satisfactory consultation with the different segments of the industry concerned.