India’s Pulse Imports, ‘Carefully Fulfilling WTO Commitments’

The Ministry of Finance announced a 30 per cent tariff on the imports of chickpeas and lentils on 21st December. The Ministry announcement cites the measure as in the public’s interest and follows a series of recent import tariff increases. The applied tariff rate is now at par with India’s bound rate. India’s global chickpea and lentil imports have crossed 1.6 billion USD in 2017.

India has shown commitment to World Trade Organisation, dutifully once again. A report from global information network says, ‘This rate is India’s committed World Trade Organization (WTO) bound duty rate for chickpeas and lentils that may have created distress selling in previous years’. This year government is playing more cautiously. Ministry of Finance had issued notice on 21st December for customs, effectively instituting a 30 per cent tariff on chickpeas (Chana) and lentils (Masoor).

This notification follows a long series of announcements that increase tariff rates on food staples that are a frequently used as vegetarian-based proteins as well as various edible oils consumed by rural and urban Indian residents. India had relaxed the applied tariff rates on many of these agricultural commodities when its domestic crop supply was stressed in 2016, this has led to great distress among all the farmer unions.

Earlier to this, the government had issued affording an applied rate of zero percent on agricultural products in harmonized tariff “Pulses except Pigeon Pea (Tur)”.  At that time, the GOI applied a 10 per cent import tariff on lentils and Pigeon Pea/Tur.  Post that on 5th of August and then on 21st of August 2017, the government had imposed import quota limits on Pigeon Pea as well as Moong beans. Again on the 8th of November this year, the GOI has notified ‘Customs raising the import tariff on dried peas from zero to fifty per cent’.

India’s Global Chickpeas Import (quantity)

India’s Global Lentils Dried, Shell Imports (quantity)

Trade Data

India’s global imports of chickpeas and lentils total nearly 1.6 billion USD from January to November 2017, according to Indian Customs data and had been climbing steadily for the past several years. From January to November 2017, India’s largest chickpea providers by value were: Australia (867 million USD), Myanmar (28 million USD), Tanzania (14 million USD), and Sudan (12 million USD).  From January to November 2017, India’s largest lentil suppliers by value were: Canada (427 million USD), Australia (155 million USD), and the United States (41 million USD).

India’s Global Pulse Imports (Value)