The Union Budget 2025 is expected to lower the cost of a variety of goods, which would help businesses and consumers in a number of sectors.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Union Budget 2025 included a number of new provisions that may ease the financial strain on businesses and consumers alike. In his Budget 2024 address, Sitharaman had suggested lowering the customs rates on a variety of goods, including as cell phones, chargers, and several cancer drugs. Sitharaman has also proposed reducing the customs duties on gold and silver to 6% and platinum to 6.4%. She also proposed doing away with the basic customs fee (BCD) for blister copper and ferronickel.
Here is a brief summary of the main things that will drop in price following the budget announcement:
- Medicines for Cancer and Chronic Illnesses Good news for patients: 36 life-saving medications will now be completely free from basic customs taxes, lowering the cost of necessary treatments for chronic illnesses and cancer.
- Electronic Products Basic Customs Duty (BCD) on open cells and other electronic components will be lowered to 5%, making electronic items more cheap for both consumers and producers.
- Minerals Reduced prices for essential minerals since BCD will not charge for lead, zinc, cobalt powder, lithium-ion battery waste and scrap, and 12 other essential minerals. For sectors that depend on these minerals, this is fantastic since it might reduce manufacturing costs.
- The Budget 2025 proposes to exclude 28 items for the production of mobile phone batteries and 35 additional goods for the manufacturing of EV batteries from basic customs charges, which would boost the EV industry. This will assist to speed up the EV revolution and lower the cost of EV manufacturing.
- Wet blue leather is now completely free from basic customs duty, which lowers the cost of leather goods. Both buyers and producers may find leather items more reasonably priced as a result.
- Frozen fish paste, or surimi Less expensive surimi as the BCD on frozen fish paste (surimi) will be lowered from 30% to 5%, which will help the production and export of goods made from surimi and probably result in lower pricing for customers.
- Crafts increased exports as a result of the addition of nine goods to the list of duty-free inputs and the extension of the export period for handicrafts from six months to a year. Exports of handicrafts will profit from this, and it may lower the cost of these goods on the global market.
- Textile Equipment It is now easier and less expensive to make technical textile goods including agro-textiles, medical textiles, and geo textiles thanks to the addition of two types of shuttle-less looms to the list of totally exempted machinery.
- Fabrics Knitted lower-priced fabrics as the BCD rate on knitted fabrics was changed to “20% or 115 per kg, whichever is higher.” This is expected to minimise textile production costs and encourage more cheap domestic manufacturing.
These Union Budget 2025 policies are expected to lower the cost of a variety of goods, which will help businesses and consumers in a number of sectors.