Indian Govt. Imposes Import Restrictions for Computer Goods

Indian Government imposed restriction on import of laptops, tablets, other personal computers and servers with immediate effect. Speaking today, Thursday, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry notified in an amendment, that will impose a licensing requirement for imports of the goods under HSN 8471 series, in a move aiming to boost the local manufacturing efforts.

“Import of laptops, tablets, all-in-one personal computers, and ultra small form factor computers and servers falling under HSN 8471 shall be ‘restricted,'” a government notification said, adding that the import will be allowed against a valid licence for restricted imports. However, the restriction will not apply to passengers carrying the mentioned devices in their baggage.

Though the move on prima facie seems to aim as an exercise to encourage local manufacturing, however New Delhi hasn't offered an explanation about it yet.

The revised policy looks like this.

Indian government has been luring global manufacturers with special incentives, in a bid to spur domestic production and has so far been successful to bring in a host of smartphone manufacturers to setup their manufacturing inland.

However, the success rate has not seen any dramatic development other than recent announcements and a couple of tech giants such as Foxconn who have kick started their setting up a manufacturing plant near Bengaluru, AMD too announced their interest to setup a R&D facility, however the manufacturing of personal computer devices are yet to see the light of the day.

Government of India, under the visionary leadership of Narendra Modi unveiled a $2 billion scheme to promote tech businesses to setup local manufacturing hubs for computer hardware products such as laptops, PCs, servers and related gadgets. 

So far, Dell and HP are among the few companies that already have manufacturing facilities in India, although it majorly operates in the assembly of semi-finished goods, not a full scale manufacturing facility. In the process, the country currently spends billions of dollars on importing laptops and other hardware that affects the total GDP growth and economical advantages from positive foreign trade.