India to Slash Import Duties: The towering...

India to Slash Import Duties: The towering duties have kept foreign consumer goods out of the world’s second-most populous country for decades, Finance Minister Manmohan Singh told members of a customs advisory panel. “The time has now come to tell the industry that the government cannot afford to provide a high level of protection to Indian industry, particularly in the consumer-goods sector,” he said. Singh engineered a three-year market-opening program that has cut duties on many capital goods and raw materials used by manufacturers.