The Hindu Business Line : Industries’ views sought on tariff reduction, market access

Chennai, Sept 4 Industries that could be adversely affected by the sectoral initiatives under the Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) negotiations under the WTO need to send their inputs within a fortnight to help the Commerce Ministry finalise its stand on the market access for industrial goods, according to Mr Bipin Menon, Deputy Secretary, Trade Policy Division, Commerce Ministry.

Addressing a meeting organised by the Federation of Indian Export Organisations, he told representatives from the chemical, electronic and electrical products, industrial machinery and parts, the wind-up meeting of the Commerce Ministry officials concerned is to be held on September 19.

Industry representatives need to send in their inputs on the issues ahead of the meeting to help formulate India’s strategy on tariff reduction and market access for industrial products.

India’s concern about the sectoral initiative, which involves bringing down bound tariffs to zero or as low as possible to mutually agreeable levels, is that it inverts duty structures by making products import cheaper than raw material imports, affects domestic industry, revenue would drop, and the tiered tariff structure would be distorted, apart from undermining multilateral negotiations, he said.

Mr Rafeeque Ahmed, a past president of the federation, said India has the opportunity to leverage the NAMA negotiations to generate employment through expansion of trade.

One area of concern is that the number of percentage points by which India would be required to reduce its bound tariffs exceeds that of development countries.

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