NEW DELHI: The US is going to make a last-ditch effort to convince India to bring down import duties on a host of products including high-capacity motorbikes, pistachios and chocolates in the bilateral trade policy forum (TPF) meeting in Chicago just a week before finance minister P Chidambaram presents the Union Budget for 2008-09.

India, on the other hand, will keep up the pressure for revocation of anti-dumping duties imposed by the US on Indian shrimps which has drastically affected exports.

The TPF, which will be chaired by commerce & industry minister Kamal Nath and US trade representative Susan Schwab, will be in Chicago on February 19-20. The discussions will focus on five areas including agriculture, innovation and creativity, which will looks at intellectual property rights related issues, investment, services and tariff and non-tariff barriers.

According to sources, convincing India to bring down tariffs on the identified products was high on the US agenda of issues to be taken up during the TPF.

Speaking to ET, official sources said that while the commerce department had recommended duty cuts on some of these products including Harley Davidsons, chocolates and pistachios, the finance ministry was yet to take a final call. The commerce department has suggested that import duties on high-capacity mobikes could be reduced from 60% to 30% as it would not affect the Indian industry adversely.

On the contrary, it would result in additional revenue flows. Similarly, even for pistachios, the commerce department has recommended that duties may be brought down from the present level of 30%.

Even if the duty cuts are not announced in the Budget, if the government is later convinced that some duty cuts are in order, reductions can be made through notifications, an official said.

India has plans to push for removal of anti-dumping duties on shrimps from India during the meeting. Anti-dumping duties of 10.54% imposed on shrimps from India in 2005 had resulted in a sharp drop in exports to the country. While the duties were reduced by 3% last year, it was still rendering exports from India incompetitive.

14 Feb, 2008, 0148 hrs IST,Amiti Sen, TNN

Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com