The portal on SPS (sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures) and TBT (technical barriers to trade) issues would cover three areas, including taking feedback from exporters and finding a resolution strategy. It also assumes significance in the wake of India’s agricultural exports falling 3% in the first quarter. Agricultural exports also face non-tariff barriers in many countries.
A task force is also looking into the resolution strategy for NTBs.
“The portal will also help us to monitor all the efforts done to resolve those issues. In the next 2-3 months hopefully, we will be able to roll that out,” he said.
Most non-tariff measures are domestic rules created by countries to protect human, animal or plant health and environment and take the form of regulations, standards, testing, certification, pre-shipment inspection or non-technical measures like quotas, import licensing, subsidies, and government procurement restrictions.
India’s exports are far below potential as they face NTBs in the EU (European Union), the US, China, Japan, Korea and other countries. Key Indian exports that routinely face high barriers include, chillies, tea, basmati rice, milk, poultry, bovine meat, fish, chemical products to the EU; sesame seed, black tiger shrimps, medicines, apparel to Japan; food, meat, fish, dairy, industrial products to China; shrimps to the US; and bovine meat to South Korea.On the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, he said that it is not “strictly” an SPS or TBT issue. He also said that as customs duty rates are gradually going down, more and more technical regulations are increasing, which most of the time acts as barriers to trade. During 1995-2024, India has flagged as many as 43 issues in the SPS committee of the WTO and 40 TBT matters.
Agri exports
The Red Sea crisis, higher freight and container shortage due to issues between China and the US, have pulled down India’s agricultural exports by 3% in the first quarter of the year, an official said Friday. The decline was witnessed in the products covered by the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA).”There has been a 3% decline in APEDA schedule products. The overall picture is that is a lot of issue in the logistics particularly due to the Red Sea crisis which is still persistent,” said an official. Higher tariffs on Chinese imports by the US will kick in from August 1 due to which higher import are happening in the US which has led to more traffic and shortage of containers.