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G. Srinivasan

The latest official revised report on the subject has said that about 35 per cent of India's total exports to the US in value terms confronted non-tariff barriers in 2002 and so is the case with other developed countries such as the EU and Japan.

New Delhi , Aug. 28

EVEN as most of the draft proposals on the Cancun Ministerial of the WTO relating to the non-tariff barriers (NTBs) and other market access barriers both under agricultural goods and non-agricultural goods are consigned to the backburner, an official report on NTBs has highlighted the gap in these areas and sought the focus being shifted on them in the negotiations on market access.

Export promotion councils and commodity boards to whom the Economic Division of the Ministry of Commerce has referred its earlier report on the subject told Business Line here that the revised version could be valuable inputs for trade negotiators from India to highlight the seriousness of the barriers to trade particularly of the developing world.

The latest official revised report on the subject has said that about 35 per cent of India's total exports to the US in value terms confronted NTBs in 2002 and so is the case with the incidence of NTBs in regard to India's exports to other developed countries such as the European Union and Japan. It said the number of cases of non-tariff measures slapped by the US since 1999 remained the highest, constituting 87 per cent share in the total number of cases of NTMs imposed at eight-digit level of commodity classification. This shows that "there is concrete evidence to show that NTMs started to increase when tariffs start falling."

Citing how some NTBs in the US related to rigorous standards and technical requirements affecting different sectors and commodities, the report said Indian shrimp and prawn exported to the US are subject to random checking and the Federal Drug Administration rejects the consignment of such shrimp and prawn on three counts viz., Salmonella, filth and decomposition. Similarly, US allows import of pepper from India only with Indian Export Inspection Authority's certificate. The exporters have to bear the charges of inspection at 0.4 by value of goods, while for other trading partners of the US such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, pepper is allowed entry without such certificate from the respective countries.

Again yarn exports to the US confront adverse conversion factor. The US quota is in square metre equivalent (SME). But the yarn is exported in kilograms. The standard conversion factor from kgs to SME for yarns creates hurdles in exports of yarn since the quota utilisation is more in such cases.

Referring to NTBs on sanitary and phytosantiary (SPS) conditions, the report said in the case of the EU, when a consignment is reported to be rejected by a member country, neither the reports nor the method of testing is intimated to the exporters, even on demand. To compound the difficulty of exporters, there is no appeal provision in the EU cargo norms and cargo is not returned to the exporters.

In the case of Japan, squid, seaweed, mackerel, Sardine, Herring and Scallop are subject to import quotas in Japan and many vitamins are treated as foods, calling for rigorous application of SPS measures. Again, processed food imports into Japan are affected by Japanese standards affecting food additives, even though these additives might be generally recognised as safe elsewhere.

The report has drawn attention to the reported presence of pesticide residues in Indian spice exports to Australia. Analytical results obtained in laboratories in India and those in Australia vary for the same shipment. The current maximum residual levels (MRLs) for spices seem to be too stringent, putting paid to the effort of spice exporters to this country.

Stating that the number of countries practising NTBs and technical barriers to trade (TBT) is on the ascendant, the report said Singapore Government has introduced the Singapore Consumer Protection (Safety Requirements) Regulations 2002, under which all suppliers (domestic or foreign) of controlled goods in hardware sector must be registered with the Safety Authority as registered suppliers. What is more bothering is that before approaching the Safety Authority, the supplier has to approach the Conformity Assessment Body to get a certificate of conformity and then apply for registration of the product, putting the Indian exporters to undergo the tortuous drill for registration.

The report points out that there are genuine and non-genuine NTBs and WTO-compatible and WTO-incompatible NTBs. The genuine NTBs have to be accepted while protectionist ones need to be negotiated. India and other developing countries should also plead that some provisions in WTO related to SPS and TBT conditions should be modified to ensure that they are not used as protectionist ploys.

Finally, the report forcibly argued that given the overt link between removal of tariffs and increase in NTBs and the existence of tariff peak for items with NTBs and of export interest to countries like India, any negotiations on market access should incorporate the pre-condition of elimination of NTBs under "a fast track approach," the sources said.

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