What are Indians importing after the QR era?
WHILE ALL eyes are on what will happen when the quantitative restrictions (QRs or import controls) on 715 products are removed on April 1, one does not have to wait until then to get an idea about how much Indians are spending on foreign products which for more than four decades were not freely importable. The QRs to go on April 1 are the last and presumably the ones on the most “sensitive” products. But the lifting of QRs has been a gradual process that has been going on for more than five years. Close to 3,000 products – at the eight digit classification level – were under QRs, a number that has now come down to only 715 products. So an analysis of import trends in products that were put on the “free” list in the recent past should give a broad and early indication of what may happen when all products – other than arms and drugs – are freed from import controls later this year. Going by trends in imports of the 894 products on which QRs were removed on April 1, 1999 and the 714 p
