New Delhi: Amid demands of banning Chinese products in the country, the government on Monday said having legitimate reasons to stop imports from a country is not enough to ban products.
"There is a demand to ban Chinese products, which is practically not possible. We may have legitimate reasons to stop imports from a country, on a blanket kind of law... that is not possible. Just because we have legitimate reasons, we cannot stop goods coming from a country just because we want to stop everything from that country," Minister of State (Independent Charge) in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Nirmala Sitharaman told ANI.
"I can take the example of toys, wherein we find toxic material, and when some toys from China did come with such toxic material present in them, bringing in the question of safety of our children.. they were stopped," she added.
Sitharaman further stated that the government banned Chinese milk and milk products because there were some elements of some undesirable products.
"The telephones with a particular description have also been stopped from China. So if there are reasons and if there are standards and the commodity which comes from China is below the prescribed standards, we can stop it," she added.
Earlier in the day, the Union Minister in a written reply in Lok Sabha today said that trade defence measures like anti- dumping duty and countervailing duty are available to industries to seek remedies under the prescribed provisions.
"The Import of milk and milk products (including chocolates and chocolate products and candies, confectionary, food preparations with milk or milk solids as an ingredient) from China is prohibited till 23.6.2016 or until further orders, whichever is earlier," she said.