A team of officials from the U.S. will be in India on January 24, to discuss import duties levied or raised by the federal government last year on smartphones, base stations, smart watches, printer ink cartridges and other Information and Communications Technology (ICT) products, and lobby for their removal. India currently levies customs duty on mobile phones and some other ICT items at 20 percent
“The import duties on telecom products were imposed to keep a check on the current account deficit by curbing inflow of non-essential items. It is also in line with the government’s ‘Make in India’ policy,” an official from India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT said.
The U.S. argued at the WTO that most of the items, including mobile phones, were included in the IT Agreement (ITA) of the WTO and were exempt from tariffs. Both India and the U.S. are part of the ITA signed by countries in 1996. India’s counter argument at the WTO was that some current ICT items do not fall under the ITA because many of them, including smartphones, have evolved over the last two decades and had not been designed in 1996.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
