Industry shaken: Mr Ravinder Zutshi (right), President, CEAMA, with Mr Anoop Kumar, former President, addressing a press conference in the Capital on Friday.

Our Bureau

New Delhi, May 16 The Consumer Electronic and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA) has opposed the Government’s proposal to levy a hefty anti-dumping duty on imports of colour picture tubes.

The anti-dumping cell had recently recommended in its preliminary report that anti-dumping duty be levied on imported colour picture tubes.

Appealing to the Government to reconsider the recommendation, the industry body said such move will be detrimental to the growth of the colour television industry as it will increase the prices of colour televisions, besides harming the domestic colour picture tube manufacturers.

Noting that the colour picture tube (CPT) industry has the limited capacity to produce only 850,000 units a month, Mr Ravinder Zutshi, President CEAMA and Deputy Managing Director, Samsung India, said the television industry is forced to rely on imports to meet the supply gap. “The levy of anti-dumping duty on imports of colour picture tube will lead to a hefty increase in the prices of CTV sets, thereby, impacting the growth of this industry. Further, this will certainly add to the inflationary trend already existing in the country,” he added.

Currently, the demand for colour television is projected to be over 15 million sets this year and it far exceeds the total supply of colour picture tubes by the domestic industry.

“The domestic CPT industry does not manufacture 21-inch slim and ultra slim picture tubes as well as 29 inch slim picture tubes in the country.

“Further, the capacity of domestic CPT manufacturers — Samtel Color and JCT Electronics, is only about 10 million units.

“This leads to a shortfall of more than five million units, which has to be met by imports,” Mr Zutshi added.

FTA with Thailand

CEAMA also noted that the Free Trade Agreement with Thailand, under which the imports of TV sets from Thailand attract zero customs duty, will make the domestic television redundant.

“The increase in the price of television sets, as a consequence of anti-dumping duty on CPT, would make the cost of television sets imported from Thailand cheaper.

“Thus, there is a distinct possibility that some of the leading television manufacturers would close down television production units here and import TV sets from Thailand, thereby, giving a severe setback to the domestic manufacturing sector,” he said.

The industry body also said that 100-odd units television manufacturing units are based out of the SME sector.

There are total of about 175,000 persons employed in TV and its ancillary industry.

Also due to closing down of TV manufacturing units, the demand for CPTs would naturally be affected, adversely impacting the CPT industry as well.

Kamal Narang

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Source: www.thehindubusinessline.com