India may offer duty concession to the US on soya oil, apple, lentils

 If the US is ready to allow certain benefits to India like re-recognising the government’s organic certification programme NPOP, there could be reduced duty on import of certain products from there, sources said. Currently, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal is in the US and leading a delegation of officials to discuss tariff-related issues in bilateral trade following President’s Donald Trump terming India’s import tariff as too high. “Perhaps the initiative may begin by balancing the trade. The objective must be a sustained scaling up of mutual trade between India and USA by identifying and constructing new market access and trade regime based on comparative advantages,” said foreign trade policy expert S Chandrasekaran.

India has already been importing soyabean oil from the US, along with Brazil, Argentina and Russia in which the effective import duty is 27.5 per cent on crude variety and 35.75 per cent on refined oil. However, the share of import from US in entire imported soya oil is very negligible. “The US is not a big exporter of soya oil as it has huge domestic consumption, both for food processing and biodiesel programme, limiting the surplus. But it exports a lot of soyabean, which are genetically modified and not allowed in India. Even if concessional duty is offered, it won’t be able to export soya oil,” said an industry expert. India had permitted duty-free imports of edible oils in May 2022 after their prices surged globally due to supply shortages. But, even after the duty was levied last year, there was a demand for further hike in the import tax as domestic prices have fallen since the hike was announced in September 2024. The retaliatory duty of additional 20 per cent on Washington apples was removed in September 2023, facilitating US apple to gain prominence in India again. The retaliatory tariff over and above basic import duty of 50 per cent was imposed by India in 2019 in retaliation to section 232 of US government’s higher import tax on Indian steel and aluminium.

“The prices of imported apples are very high and even if a duty concession is offered to the US, it is not going to impact domestic producers much as each segment (domestic and imported) has different consumers,” said a source adding poultry may not be touched as the US is aware of India’s stand. Similarly, there may be concessions offered to the US on lentil (masur) as the government is mulling to impose duty after the current duty-free regime expired on March 31, sources said. India had imported 5.91 lakh tonnes of lentil during April-November of current fiscal, where Australia and Canada together had a share of over 91 per cent and the US has less than 5 per cent.

“The US lentil has to be price competitive to be sold in India when major quantity is already coming from Canada and Australia,” a pulses importer said adding the US should think why it is not able to increase lentil export when there is no duty.