Every 8-digit HSN code across Chapters 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 38 & 39 where India ran a FY2025-26 trade deficit (import − export ≥ US$0.5M) — 827 codes, US$67.9B combined deficit — scored against a value/volume/price signal framework and cross-checked against public reporting.

Which of 827 Chemical HSN-8 Codes Are Real Substitution Targets

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Revised 7 August 2026 · v3.0.0 · full registry moved to a separate reference page · checked 19 September 2026: FY2025-26 is still the latest complete fiscal year DGCI&S TradeStat covers, so the underlying value/volume/price figures below do not need refreshing yet — they will next move when FY2026-27 closes. TradeStat itself was unreachable from this environment to re-verify directly; this is a vintage check, not a re-pull.

Signal framework applied (and its honest limits)

Every qualifying code is scored on value growth, import-volume growth, and unit-price growth (FY2024-25 → FY2025-26, matched from DGCI&S TradeStat's separate Value and Quantity files at the 8-digit HS level, 801/827 codes matched — corrected 9 Aug 2026; the four signal-category counts below sum to 801, not the 802 originally stated):

• Scissors Effect — import value AND volume both falling ≥10% while unit price rises ≥5%: only high-end/niche variants still being imported — the textbook active-substitution signature. 34 codes.
• Inelastic Target — top-quartile import value, price flat (±8%), value not declining: a large, standardized, price-insensitive forex drain — the framework's top-tier PLI/capex candidate. 65 codes.
• Deepening — value AND volume both rising ≥15%: dependency is growing, the opposite of substitution — a watch-list, not a substitution candidate. 209 codes.
• No Signal — no clear directional pattern in a single-year window. 493 codes.

⚠️ What this signal analysis can NOT do, honestly:

• Only 1 FY-over-FY window (24-25→25-26), not the 3-5yr trend the framework calls for. A code marked "Scissors Effect" here is a single-year echo of the pattern, not a confirmed multi-year substitution story — treat every signal below as a screening flag, not a conclusion.
• No Import Penetration Ratio (IPR). IPR needs domestic production value, which DGCI&S TradeStat doesn't carry — would need IIP/ASI production data merged in, not done here.
• No Component Shift (Signal C) detection. That needs finished-good HSN codes paired against their component HSN codes (e.g. phones vs PCBA) — not attempted for this chemical basket since the finished/component pairing isn't codified for these chapters.
• No country-of-origin check. A code could be "falling from China, rising from Vietnam" (FTA re-routing, not real substitution) — TradeStat's commodity-wise file has no partner-country breakdown; would need the country-wise export/import file to rule this out.
• No tariff/PLI cross-reference at code level yet. The rule-based rationale column (kept alongside) flags PLI-relevant sectors qualitatively, but no systematic 24-month tariff-change lookup was run per HSN line.

Cross-checked against public sources — one correction found

Five headline figures were checked against public reporting before publishing:

• DAP (31053000) $4.87B, +76% YoY — confirmed: matches reported West Asia supply disruption + price surge driving India's fertiliser import bill in FY26 (Outlook Business, MarineLink).
• Phosphoric Acid (28092010) $2.67B — confirmed: India is widely reported as the world's largest phosphoric-acid importer; structural, not cyclical.
• PVC Suspension Resin (39041020) $1.63B, −23% — confirmed direction: matches reported capacity-driven import-dependence decline (anti-dumping duty was actually scrapped Nov 2025, so the fall is capacity, not tariff, driven).
• PTA (29173600) $1.47B, −8% — confirmed direction: matches new IOC/GAIL PTA capacity (Panipat, Paradip) coming online.
• Gold Compounds (28433000) $4.01B — ANOMALY, corrected below: this is not chemical-sector demand. Trade press (India Seatrade News) documents this exact HS code being used to import gold in liquid/compound form to dodge the 6% bullion duty — imports here spiked up to ~9x YoY in some quarters. DGFT moved 28433000 from "free" to "restricted" in June 2025 to close the loophole. It has been pulled out of the substitution-target framing in the table below (flagged, not scored as a signal) — treating it as a chemical-PLI candidate would have been wrong.

The full registry

The chapter-wise tables — 827 HSN-8 codes across Chapters 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 38 and 39, 835 rows in total — are published as a separate reference page:

Full HSN-8 Registry →

They were moved out of this article because at 368 KB of table markup they consumed Blogger’s per-page index budget, which stopped the homepage listing more than two posts. The analysis is unchanged.