Phones, peripherals set to get cheaper after customs duty cut

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced a slew of measures to strengthen India’s electronics industry that included reduced basic customs duty on mobile phones, mobile printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) and mobile chargers from 20% to 15% and increased the duty on PCBAs of some telecom equipment from 10% to 15%.

The budget also proposed to exempt 25 critical minerals and rare earth elements from custom duties and reduced the basic duty on two of them to secure their availability for strategic sectors such as telecommunications, electronics, energy, space, defence, renewable energy and nuclear energy.