Incentivise local production, but don't penalise imports, says Ikea CEO

India must look at incentivising local production rather than penalising imports, IKEA Group CEO Jesper Brodin said today.

The head of Swedish home furnishing major, which is set to open its first store in India tomorrow, said high import duties on items would only make customers pay the price as it does not necessarily translate into local manufacturing excellence.

"Our point of view is that it would be better to incentivise local production than to penalise imports," Brodin said here in an interaction with media.

He was responding to a query on key challenges faced by the company in India.

Listing import duties on the top of the list, Brodin said: "Because it will be the customers who pays for it, and not necessarily (it) drives excellence in production."
"For me and for us, there is a logic to what India is doing. There's a logic to the development of India and we would like to trust and believe that it would continue. We are not sleepless over it."