Import tariff needs to be brought down by 50% to achieve competitiveness: Montek Ahluwalia

Montek Singh Ahluwalia speaks during a national conference with ministers of environment and forests in New Delhi August 18, 2009. (REUTERS/B Mathur)

Bringing down import tariffs by at least 50 percent holds the key to achieve competitiveness in India, former deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia has said.

Stating that the Indian economy has not witnessed “fast enough” growth, Ahluwalia said “the underlying challenge is the ineffectiveness to translate broad uncontroversial objectives of competitiveness and growth into concrete and actionable policy programmes yielding results in a time-bound manner.”

He was speaking at a webinar on “improving India”s competitiveness for inclusive economic growth” by CUTS International on Tuesday.

In addition, Ajit Pai, distinguished expert, economics and finance at NITI Aayog, stressed on the need for designing a sequential strategy of policy interventions in order to achieve the objectives of competitiveness.

Developing scale of manufacturing, both as a strategy and as an outcome of policy instruments, should be the imperative to achieve this, he added.