New Delhi: Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Friday said that India will address the issue of the European Union’s plan to impose a carbon tax on certain imported goods and that the country would retaliate if required.
Under the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), non-EU steel producers are required to report direct and indirect emissions. The monitoring of such products began October 1.
“We will address the problem of CBAM with confidence. We will find solutions. We will see how we can convert CBAM to our advantage if it comes in,” Goyal said at FICCI’s 96th Annual General Meeting and Annual Convention.
“Ofcourse I will retaliate, you need not worry about it. India today doesn’t take these things easily,” Goyal said.
CBAM will translate into a 20-35% tax on select imports into the EU from January 1, 2026. From that date, EU importers will have to declare and purchase CBAM certificates to cover the emissions associated with producing imported steel products.
Referring to the mutual resolution of its seven disputes with the US at the World Trade Organization, he said: “With the US, we retaliated when they put unfair taxes on us. We resolved 7 WTO disputes mutually. This can happen when India is respected, admired and friendship with India is carried value.”
He also said that the government plans to come up with Jan Vishwas Bill 2 with additional provisions to decriminalise laws and make compliance easier.
The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023 seeks to amend certain enactments for decriminalising and rationalising offenses to further enhance trust-based governance for ease of living and doing business.
On electric mobility, he said: “Imagine the holistic dimensions- our foreign exchange reserves that we save with lesser imports of crude oil. The day we can get rid of crude oil imports, can you imagine how fast we can grow. The dimensions of strong rupee will become a reality and expectations of a pollution free environment”.
He also said the government wants to make India the technology hub and innovation centre of the world.
“The vision is very clear that the service sector has to engage and grow with the best of technologies and modern thoughts. We are looking at a 10x growth and become a $35 trillion economy by 2047,” Goyal said.
He said one of the largest investment bank’s CEO said that Indian currency is the safest to invest in and the stability it showed in the last two years when most other emerging markets faced stress.
