The Hindu : Business : Trade facilitation: India to sign revised pact

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 19, 2005

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Trade facilitation: India to sign revised pact

No compromise on security, says Kamal Nath

NEW DELHI: India has decided to sign the revised Kyoto convention on customs and a proposal in this regard is expected to be taken up by the Cabinet soon.

"At the moment inter-ministerial consultations are on. It will then be sent to the Cabinet for its approval soon,'' Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) Chairman M. Jayaraman said here on Thursday.

As per the convention, which has been signed by about 38 countries including the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, China and Pakistan, India would be under multilateral obligation to follow standardised procedures on customs.

New Delhi was also a signatory to the earlier convention, which was less rigorous than its revised form having 121 legal provisions annexed to it.

The U.S. is not a signatory to this convention. It outlines standardised procedures for transparency in customs procedures, treatment of offences and use of IT some of which India is already implementing, Jayaraman said at an UNCTAD seminar on trade facilitation.

Joint paper with U.S.

Delhi Correspondent adds:

In a message to the seminar, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said the ongoing WTO negotiations on trade facilitation must address concerns of exporters in developing countries. He said reduced transaction costs at borders would give a competitive edge to industry and also improve the country's attractiveness as an investment destination.

"We are an active participant in the trade facilitation negotiations. We look upon these negotiations as an opportunity to review our domestic procedures...We have in fact filed a joint paper with the U.S. in an area of high concern to us — namely to evolve an effective cooperation mechanism between customs administration to deal with issues concerning violation of customs laws,'' he said.

Mr. Nath noted that while relentlessly reforming on domestic basis, India could not make commitments to the WTO that had the potential to adversely affect the core functions of safeguarding revenue and security. "We need to be cautious that commitments should not be such that they put unsustainable additional resource burden on us,''he said.

He said India opposed inclusion of these issues in the WTO not because of serious opposition to trade facilitation but because of the other three contentious issues. These were investment, competition and government procurement. Once these issues were off the table, he said India's comfort level improved considerably. "We are will to negotiate on trade facilitation,'' he said.

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