Indian businesses continue to face hurdles due to import restrictions on consignments of Chinese origin. Some of the worst-hit sectors such as pharmaceuticals, automobiles and auto ancillary, fertilizers, chemicals, etc have made a slew of representations to the government, seeking early clearances.
Pharma industry sources have told CNBC-TV18 that individual companies have now started writing to their domestic and international clients seeking more time to meet export orders, citing longer customs clearance of imported raw material as a prime reason for the delay in meeting order obligations.
Meanwhile, senior government sources added that “Department of Pharmaceutical made an SOS call to Finance Ministry and PMO, seeking immediate clearance of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (APIs), Key Starting Raw Materials (KSM’s) and intermediates. Post which, customs authorities from June 30 started clearing imports across Indian ports.”
Clearances, however, are happening for consignments post proper checks, inspections as desired by the customs latest protocols.
The pharma companies and their industry bodies have written afresh yesterday to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Cabinet Secretary- Rajiv Guaba, Health secretary Preeti Sudan, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, Principal Secretary to PM requesting for expediting clearance of import consignments.
“There has been a huge disruption on account of inordinate delay in Customs Clearing from last one week” and non-clearance of imported Pharma Key Starting Raw Materials (KSM’s), Intermediates & API’s, COVID related medical devices, as well as diagnostics from ports particularly Nhava Sheva & Delhi Airport, are hurting the industry, said the letter.
"There are many international commitments, Indian pharma companies have export orders in advance from a lot of countries in Africa, EU, etc, were not meeting these commitments, there are serious penal provisions. Many pharma companies have global tie-ups where drugs and medicines need to be supplied from India and they get branded and marketed in those countries, so now pharma companies are forced to reach to their clients, seeking an extension of order timelines caused due to the import restrictions. Holland, Germany have already sounded that in the next one or two years they will start pharma manufacturing in their own country and reduce their reliance on India. So there is hardly enough opportunity left and such man-made barriers impact the international reputation of Indian manufacturers," said Dinesh Dua, Chairman Pharmexcil.
First Published: Jun 30, 2020 6:45 PM IST
