India Put Restrictions On Tyre Imports

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Putting the goods under restricted category means an importer would now require a licence or permission from the DGFT for imports.
Earlier, the import of these tyres were allowed without any restrictions.
The domestic industry has time and again raised concerns over rising imports of tyres from countries like China.
The restriction was on tyres used in station wagons, racing cars, scooters, multi-cellular polyurethane tubeless tyres, and bicycles.
In December 2019, the Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association had filed an application before the Directorate General of Trade Remedies over import of tyres.
After this, the Ministry of Commerce had launched an investigation.
An anti-dumping duty on select radial tyres from China is already in place since 2017.
Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association

Data from the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S), Ministry of Commerce-
In FY19, tyres worth US$ 429 million were imported in India.
Even in the first 11 months of FY20, a year that witnessed economic slowdown in India and hence reduced demand, tyres worth US$385 million landed in India.

Impact on Chinese tyres

Most of the imported tyres are from China.
Both in the case of truck & bus radial (TBR) tyres and passenger car radial (PCR) tyres, China accounts for over 40% of overall import.
While in case of tractor tyres, Chinese import is 75% of total import.
Is our Domestic manufacturing sufficient?
K M Mammen, chairman ATMA,
“Domestic manufacturing capacity is ahead of the demand curve and India is self-sufficient in manufacturing practically all kinds of tyres including tyres for critical applications like fighter jets.
Most of the imports are unwarranted and have been hurting capacity utilization in domestic manufacturing.”

The import block will also boost demand for domestic natural rubber (NR) as tyre production goes up.
According to ATMA, indirect import of NR through tyre imports has been hurting the interests of NR growers.
For instance,
Import of each unit of truck & bus tyres represents
25 kg of indirect import of NR in the country.
Total tyre production in India declined by 8% to 177 million units in FY2019-20 due to the reduced demand.