German sportswear and accessories major adidas on Tuesday sought stable import duty rates in India, saying it would help in having more faith in the market as frequent changes in tariff hamper investment planning.
According to a PTI report: The company, which sells both locally-sourced and imported products, also said making it too difficult to import could prevent bringing the best products to India.
“Import duties go up with no notice and you are charged retrospectively and immediately, or back three months. (It is) very had to do business that way because we plan for investment for future,” Dave Thomas, Managing Director, adidas India was quoted by PTI as saying.
He further told PTI, “I think stability on that front would help us have more faith in the market so that we can invest and be clear on what the future holds for certain degree. That would be helpful.”
In India, duties on imports were quite changeable and happened without any warning, making it very difficult for multinationals such as adidas, he added.
“We have a good balance of local manufacturing and imports but I think, if you try and make it too difficult to import, it hurts international brands like us… We want to bring our best products and that is usually the imported range…India deserves a full story and deserves the best we can bring,” he told PTI
When asked about the company’s expansion plans in India, he said the focus was on tapping the offline to online format. Having consolidated its operations in India in the past few years, Thomas said adidas was scaling up retail space in India with plans to add new stores and expand the existing ones.
“In the last few years, we focused on getting better and not bigger,” he told PTI, adding, while some stores had been closed, some new ones were also opened. The company, currently, has 450 stores for adidas and 220 for its other brand Reebok.
