Saturday, December 20, 2014: India has came across a major fiscal deficit during the year 2014-15 in context of telecom products, wherein the imports were worth Rs 695,163.7 million while the exports that took place were around Rs 204,751.7 million during the year, leaving the deficit of Rs 490,412 million.
Whereas, during the 2012-13 fiscal year, the figures for imports and exports were Rs 572,087.8 million and Rs 217,167.6 million respectively, as told by the Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. In 2011-12, the imports of telecom products were of Rs 554,665.4 million and the exports were at Rs. 207,755.7 million.
While stating about the production and import of mobile phones in India, Prasad told that 130 million units were produced in the country during 2013 and it is projected to be around 60 million units during 2014, whereas the import figures were around 185 million in 2013 and estimated 220 million in 2014. Also, the value of mobile phones produced in the country is expected to go down to Rs 189,000 million in 2014 as against the value in 2013 of Rs 266,500 million in 2013. While the imports of mobile phones is estimated to up till Rs 585,550 million in 2014 as compared to 422,000 million in 2013.
The minister further noted that market in India is likely to reach 200 million units by 2020 at an average annual growth of 26 per cent. Prasad noted that the smartphone market was around 20 million units in 2012, which went up till 32 million units in 2013 and is estimated to reach 70 million units in 2014.
The minister later said that the government has adopted several steps which might have a direct impact over the mobile manufacturing in the country. They have imposed education cess on imported electronics products to bring a balance between domestically produced goods and imported goods.
In order to develop a required ecosystem for design and manufacturing of telecom industry, government has approved the setting up of two semiconductor wafer fabrication manufacturing facilities. The approved units are allowed duty free import of goods required by them for carrying out the export activities, under the electronics hardware technology park scheme.
