Port Blair, Dec 07: Under the ‘Look East” policy of Government of India, the A&N Administration in active co-ordination with various Ministries in the Govt of India exchanged dialogues with the South-East Asian countries by giving emphasis on trade between A&N Islands and South-East Asian countries. The Island Development Agency in its meeting held under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister of India on 30th June, 2018 directed A&N Administration for working on possibilities for importing materials specially construction materials directly from neighbouring countries to make it more cost effective in comparison to mainland India.
Mr. Girish Arora, President and all Members of the Andaman Chamber of Commerce & Industry are grateful to the untiring efforts of the Administration for taking up the long pending demands of the Chamber with the Government of India and vigorously following up, which resulted to exempt customs duties on articles imported from neighbouring countries. Accordingly, the custom duties on articles viz. sawn timber, wooden logs, stone aggregate, sand, cement, steel, vegetables, frozen meat, bamboo/cane furniture, species and coconut have been exempted for import from ASEAN countries to India.
The Andaman Chamber of Commerce & Industry is very much thankful to the Lt. Governor, Chief Secretary, Secretary (Ind) and all Officers of the Administration in taking up the matter at the appropriate level and got exempted for import of the above items to these Islands which will definitely bring down the price of these items drastically. The Chamber expect implementation of various such positive and public benefitted schemes from the Administration in future also.
Please keep us posted on the price comparison pre and post implementation of this exemption.