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India, which has gained presidency of the five-nation BRICS this year, is planning to initiate greater cooperation among member-countries in the areas of services and ways to deal with non-tariff measures (NTMs).
As per the Commerce Ministry’s action plan, the exercise will kick off with two seminars, comprising senior officials from all five countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), in the identified areas of NTMs and services in April this year.
“The seminars will be an exploratory exercise to see how the countries can cooperate in boosting services trade and also addressing NTMs, such as onerous standards and procedures, to boost flow of goods and services,” a government official told BusinessLine . It will be followed by a second meeting sometime later.
Trade Ministers from the BRICS bloc are expected to meet in the middle of the year where they would take forward ideas generated by their officials in the exploratory meetings.
“We hope that some ideas on cooperation in services and NTMs would be incorporated in the ministerial declaration,” the official added.
The final action plan, which is being envisaged as a document, is likely to be finalised at the last meeting to be held simultaneously with the BRICS Summit to be hosted by India and which will be attended by heads of states. The BRICS nations together accounted for a GDP of over $16 trillion in 2014.
“Right now we do not know how much appetite there is in member-countries to cooperate in the areas of services and NTMs. We will have a better idea after the first set of seminars in April,” the official said.
Balanced approach needed In services, the BRICS nations could look at intensifying cooperation in various mutually-beneficial sectors such as education, travel and tourism, and health. “A number of studies carried out by various institutes have underlined the need to encourage cooperation and trade in services, as it will also have a positive impact on overall productivity and efficiency of the economy,” the official said. In the area of NTMs, India has both offensive and defensive interests. “While we want other countries to address NTMs in areas like food, we are defensive in sectors such as steel and electronics, where we have some NTMs of our own. The approach has to be balanced,” the official said.
Interestingly, last year, when Russia initiated cooperation in e-commerce during its year of presidency, India held back as it did not want to take on commitments in the area.
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