India’s export composition remains concentrated on goods such as refined petroleum, diamonds, jewellery, packaged medicines, and rice, and much of the country’s export growth comes from products that fall into low- and mid-complexity categories, it said.
The dominance of mid-tech and low-complexity goods underscores the imperative for India to pursue a significant structural shift towards high-complexity categories, including advanced machinery, precision engineering goods, electronics, chemicals, and high value services, the survey said.
Many high-complexity products are within India’s current ability limits, implying that targeted industrial policies, technological improvements, and export-driven ecosystem development could yield significant benefits, it said.
Realising this potential, however, requires a strong and competitive domestic manufacturing ecosystem, the survey said.
The domestic manufacturing ecosystem needs to be further scaled up, product quality to be consistently maintained at scale, and a robust innovation, research and development ecosystem should be established, it said.
Beyond strengthening R&D and innovation, realising India’s manufacturing and Global Value Chain (GVC) potential also requires streamlining cross-border operating rules that materially affect transaction costs and investor certainty, the survey said.
India’s manufacturing-led growth strategy and deeper participation in GVC underscore the need for closer coordination between transfer pricing (under income-tax law) and customs valuation (under customs law) in respect of related-party imports, it said.
While transfer pricing provisions are designed to prevent over-pricing of imports and customs valuation rules address under-invoicing, both frameworks are anchored in the arm’s length principle, the survey said.
They are aligned with internationally accepted standards, including those of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Customs Organisation, it said.
Currently, identical import transactions are often examined separately by income tax and customs authorities, resulting in duplication of compliance, higher transaction costs, and the risk of inconsistent outcomes for the industry, the survey noted.
Given the conceptual similarities in valuation methods under the two regimes, there is a clear opportunity to move towards a collaborative convergence approach, it said.
