The government is working on a road map to create standards for various products and sectors to deal with proliferating non-tariff barriers in the international trade regime. The commerce department is organising a two-day Standards Conclave, a government industry interface, which would help educate stakeholders about these barriers and how these can be used to block substandard imports into the country. Commerce secretary Rajeev Kher spoke to ET about the issue. Edited excerpts:
What is the broad objective of industry-government interaction on standards?
The idea is to create awareness among stakeholders regarding the role of standards in the trade policy.
India has a diverse product basket, so in order to access high-profile markets, standards become extremely important. If I want to export that product to the US or EU, I need to make that product as per the standard of that country. Producing higher standards reflects higher costs. So through the Standards Conclave, a government-industry interface, we would get all stakeholders together to understand the value of standards, producing high standards, and to make them understand the need to mandate standards.
Awareness is important for greater market access, to block substandard competition, get higher value, bring capacities within the country and deal with violation of standardsrelated pacts like sanitary and phytosanitary and technical trade barriers.
Would the government mandate more standards in this respect?
Yes, absolutely. Currently, we have only 80 mandated standards. For everything else there is no mandate of a standard and anyone can produce it in any manner. We will work towards more mandatory standards, called technical regulation, which will also give an advantage of getting to block substandard product imports.
But in some cases, aren't barriers imposed to restrict imports from a particular country?
Yes, standards are increasingly becoming barriers. In some cases, the decision is malafide. If someone wants to block my imports, they will straightaway give a standard which I won't be able to meet. For example, they will impose a minimum residual limit of a pesticide, which India can never conform to, so (we) cannot export that product into that market.
Therefore, we need to learn dealing with standards.
Here government will need to play an active role.
Yes, the front end will be the government, but the back end will be the industry.
When industry doesn't get access to the market on account of a standard, they ask the government to take it up. We take up the issue bilaterally or go to WTO, which is against sanitary and phytosanitary and non-technical barriers (NTB) to trade agreements. The idea is to become savvy in dealing with NTB in the form of SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary) and (technical barriers to trade) TBT regimes.
Would the government work on a road map on creating standards for various sectors in the country?
The Standards Conclave will conclude with creating a road map for India on how to improve our conformity with higher standards, and what policies, laws and technical infrastructure are required for it. BIS Act is already under amendment.
The commerce department is working on the next round of foreign trade policy (FTP) for 2014-19. What will the focus broadly be on?
Today, FTP is just a bunch of some schemes, which in my perspective is only one half of what is needed. The first half of non-fiscal incentive paradigm of policy is missing. The FTP should not only be about providing fiscal incentives to some sectors, but much more comprehensive.
FTP should include identification of markets, providing branding assistance, assessing need for a free trade agreement with a particular country or a specific package for exporting high-value products to countries like the US.
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