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Deeptha Rajkumar

"With the fall in the WTO-bound and applied duties, the NTBs have become a major challenge before developing nations. As per the economic division documentation of 2001, almost 44 per cent of total exports to the US faced some form or the other of NTBs."

KOCHI, Jan. 27

IN a bid to reduce export market access barriers, the Commerce Ministry has asked exporters to compile an indicative list of non-tariff barriers (NTBs) in overseas trade.

In an informal chat with Business Line, Dr H.A.C. Prasad, Economic Adviser, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, said that the Department of Commerce (DoC) will compile an inventory of non-tariff measures identified by participants (in this case, the exporting community) as impediments to trade.

"With the fall in the WTO-bound and applied duties, the NTBs have become a major challenge before developing nations. As per our economic division documentation of 2001, almost 44 per cent of India's total exports to the US faced some form or the other of NTBs," he said.

He said that this exercise was also an attempt to update the DoC's list of NTBs. The previous list was issued in 2001 and had been published using the 1999 data. It is time we updated it," he said.

In Kochi, Dr Prasad met with the members of the seafood exporters community, spices exporters cashew exporters and members of the coir industry and held a `plain speak' on the need to communicate and the need to compile such a list.

"There are many who are not aware of the NTBs in their trade. And in turn, often we are not aware of sector-specific impediments. The indicative list would help both the Government and the exporting community in the sense, it will enhance market access," he reasoned. A final list of NTBs would then be forwarded to the WTO.

Commenting on his meeting with the commodities exporters, Dr Prasad said that a host of market issues of concern to specific segments were discussed.

"For instance, the seafood exporters discussed the EU regulations with regard to antibiotics and the high often stringent standards and methodology of testing. One issue we said we would take up is the fact that containers are detained for long periods and once a container is determined as contaminated it is not sent back, thereby, resulting in severe losses for the exporter. Safety clauses were also discussed," he elaborated.

Members engaged in trading in spices said that there was no harmonisation in standardisation of spices. In the sense, each state in the EU has a different standard. Cashew exporters discussed the fact that China's import duty on India was higher in comparison to duty levied on other nations.

The NTBs can be of many types. Any obstacle imposed by an importing country on its imports other than customs duties (tariff) is an NTB. So this can include quotas, tariff quotas, seasonal tariff low rates, seasonal tariff high rates etc.

Some of the major NTBs in operation in markets such as the US, the EU, Japan and restricting market access are tariff rate quotas, unnecessary supplementation of documents and information by customs, strict labelling and certification requirements set at unrealistic levels for developing countries, difference in rules and regulations at State levels, strict sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) conditions, technical barriers to trade , issues related to intelligent property rights (IPRS), anti-dumping and countervailing measures, barriers on services (visible and invisible barriers restricting movement) etc.

Amongst the import policy issues numerous restrictions on sanitary and phytosanitary grounds on India's agricultural products are often not supported by adequate scientific justification.

Even the so-called environmental bans as for example in Indian marine products harvested without certain environmental protection devices insisted on by certain trading partners do not appear to be substantiated by sufficient scientific evidence.

The restrictive visa regime in several developed countries has proved to be a disincentive for exports in the services sector by our skilled professionals especially in the software sector.

Repeated anti-dumping duties on the same duties have also proved to be extremely disruptive to our external commerce. However, a moot point to note that NTBs are not restricted to these three markets alone. Other nations such as the South East Asian countries and the Gulf also have NTBs.

Dr Prasad said that he had met with members of various industries across the country for a similar exercise in the recent past.

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