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The EU filed a new complaint at the WTO against Indian taxes on wine and spirits a year after dropping a similar complaint, saying India is still keeping European alcohol from its market.
India's government agreed in July 2007 to scrap extra duties on imports of liquor that the bloc said cut demand for whiskey and rum. India trimmed duties on imported spirits to 150%, from as high as 550%.
The EU is seeking “clarifications from India on the way tax legislation and other measures on market access for wine and spirits are applied in states such as Goa, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu,” the European Commission said in a statement from Brussels. “These states are among India's largest markets for wines and spirits.”
The US and the EU each filed complaints at the WTO against the customs duties on products by companies including Diageo Plc or Pernod-Ricard SA and brands such as Jack Daniel's or Famous Grouse. WTO judges ruled in June that the US had failed to prove the Indian duties discriminated against products such as Brown-Forman Corp's Jack Daniel's whiskey.
The Indian market for spirits is one of the largest in the world and amounted to about 130 million nine-liter (2.4 gallons) cases last year, according to EU industry. EU exports of spirits to India amounted to about 57 million euros ($83 million) last year out of a total 7 billion euros exported to more than 150 countries, said the commission, the EU's trade authority. (Source: Bloomberg)
October 1, 2008
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