In October, India introduced a second set of tariff hikes owing to burgeoning current account deficit and the fall in the rupee.
New Delhi: Disagreeing with US President Donald Trump who claimed that India is a "tariff king", the World Bank said that the Indian taxation system and economy is much more liberalised than it was a few decades ago.
Trump had accused India of imposing “tremendously high” tariffs on American products.
A top official in the international financial institution said on Wednesday said "India has some tariffs, but by no means it's not the (tariff) king.
"That (India being a tariff king) certainly is not what we find in our data," Shanta Devarajan, the World Bank's Senior Director for Development Economics and Acting Chief Economist
In October, India introduced a second set of tariff hikes owing to burgeoning current account deficit and the fall in the rupee.
Even in South Asia India did not have the highest tariffs, he said referring to the experience he had in his previous capacity in the World Bank. "And they (tariffs in India) have come down quite a bit since then," he said.
Liberalisation of the Indian economy is showing results, he said. "Tariffs were very high in 1991, when they liberalised and they found that actually the economy boomed. That has helped to build political support for further reforms," Devarajan said.
The US has negotiated a new trade deal with South Korea and has notified the Congress of separate trade deals with Japan, Britain and the European Union.
Trump has imposed hefty tariffs on imports from China and said they have hurt Beijing very badly. Discussions between India and the US have begun on a trade deal. In October, Trump had said that it had been initiated at the instance of India, only after he threatened to impose additional tariffs on its products.
(With agency inputs)
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