India extends ban on Chinese imports

India has announced bans on more Chinese goods recently, intensifying bilateral trade conflicts as the financial crisis continues.

As reported by the Financial Times yesterday, India will block sales of millions of copy-cat mobile phones from China, which India accuses of threatening the safety of Indian users.

India imposed Tuesday a duty of 14 percent on imports of aluminum flat-rolled products from China, the Indian finance ministry was quoted by Reuters as saying. The duty would be retrospective to March 23 and would be in place until March 22, 2010.

Last week, the Foreign Trade Bureau of India said the government would extend to the end of 2009 a ban on the import of dairy products from China, which was due to end yesterday. The ban order also includes chocolate and candies made in China.

India, one of the world¡¯s largest dairy consumers, imported no more than 10 tons of cheese from China in the last fiscal year.

In January, India also tried to forbid the import of toys from China, saying they fell short of international safety standards. But the attempt was temporarily put off by protests from China, asking India why it did not impose the same standards on toys from other countries.

Guo Xiushen, a specialist in intellectual property at the China Trademark Association, told the Global Times that infringing copyright is unlawful. But that a few cheap mobile phones manufactured in China, though not having been registered, are the original products of their manufacturers, Guo said.

According to statistics, about 30 million inexpensive copy-cat mobile phones are in use in India due to their extremely low prices compared to mobile phones with similar functions made by big companies such as Nokia and Samsung.

Sales of the inexpensive mobile phones dropped from 1.5 million to around 0.75 million in India after the information was released, the India Times reported.

A sales manager surnamed Hong from Shenzhen Diadem Technology in South China¡¯s Guangdong Province, which sells inexpensive mobile phones in Southeast Asia, told the Global Times the company¡¯s sales are declining due to the economic slowdown but that she was still optimistic because their products have a clear price advantage.

As for the aluminum, imports from China will likely cause disruption to India¡¯s domestic industry, the Indian finance ministry said.

The government¡¯s move may help value-added aluminum producers more than primary metal producers, Reuters quoted an analyst as saying.

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