India’s liquor makers call for easy market access in Britain

A leading trade body of India’s alcoholic beverage companies has urged the Indian government to ask the UK to reduce non-trade barriers to provide easy market access for their alcohol brands in Britain.

The Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverage Companies (CIABC) has also demanded the removal of a restriction of minimum 3 years maturation period for whisky as well as for rum, noting that in warm Indian conditions, spirit ages 3-3.5 times faster than in the UK.

The Indian government should “ask the UK government for removal of non-tariff barriers to allow easy export of Indian made alcoholic beverages to the UK,” CIABC said in a statement on Tuesday.

The body has suggested that the Indian whiskies should be allowed to be sold in the UK, irrespective of whether they are made from malt, grain spirits or molasses-based spirits.

“They (the UK) should accept Indian recipes as India accepts British recipes for whisky,” Vinod Giri, CIABC director general, said.

India exports just Rs 50 million (£0.5m) worth of alcoholic beverages annually to the UK against an import of Rs 13 billion (£129m), he added.

Exports to the UK constitute only 0.2 per cent of India’s total outward shipments of alcoholic beverages, whereas imports from the UK stood at 24 per cent of India’s total import of alcoholic beverages.

Giri further noted that “restrictive” trade policies are also hampering the growth of Indian exports to the EU and UK.

“While the export of alcoholic beverages from India stood at 7.3 million cases (9 litre each) in the year 2019-20, the exports to the entire EU (including the UK) were less than 30,000 cases which consisted of Indian super premium malt whiskies,” he said.

The definition of products by the UK is such that it does not permit Indian whisky and rum, which are predominant exports to the rest of the world, and this has made the Indo-UK trade heavily skewed against Indian products, he added.

Giri urged the government to resist any pressure to reduce import duties on imports of Scotch whisky, saying it would hurt domestic manufacturers.

Since the imports are already dominating the Indian market, any reduction in BCD (basic customs duty) will make matters worse and squeeze Indian products totally out, he noted.

“The balance of trade in alcoholic beverages is highly skewed in favour of the UK and any reduction in BCD will further worsen it,” he said, adding preferential treatment to imported liquor by some state governments has already created undue hurdles in the growth of Indian products.