India in the WTO

The USTR has released its 2009 Trade Policy Agenda and 2008 Annual Report (these can be accessed here) and the section on India would be of interest to this blog’s readers. This is extracted below: 

5. India

a. General

The United States and India completed another year of active dialogue on trade policy in 2008. The bilateral trade agenda continued to expand to support the significant opportunities for bilateral trade and investment that U.S. and Indian companies are pursuing. The Civil Nuclear Agreement signed on October 10, 2008, opens the door even wider for U.S. exports to help India meet its tremendous energy needs. That said, many challenges to trade and investment in India persist, and USTR continued to work with the Indian government to address such concerns as India’s tariff and tax regime, intellectual property rights policies, investment climate and regulatory hurdles. India continues to limit market access in various sectors through non-tariff barriers such as high border taxes and tariffs, foreign direct investment caps, non-transparent procedures, and discriminatory treatment of imports. Despite these barriers, trade expanded rapidly. In 2008, bilateral goods trade totaled $45 billion. Bilateral services trade totaled $19 billion in 2007.

b. Trade Dialogue

Ambassador Schwab and India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath convened the fifth ministerial-level meeting of the United States-India Trade Policy Forum (TPF) in February 2008 in Chicago, Illinois. The discussions under the TPF cover bilateral trade, investment and related issues and also address multilateral issues such as the ongoing WTO Doha Round negotiations. The TPF is part of the overall Economic Dialogue between India and the United States. Through regular dialogue under the TPF, the United States and India seek to remove impediments to bilateral trade and investment by anticipating potential trade problems and jointly resolving concerns.

The TPF serves as the umbrella for five Focus Groups: Agriculture, Tariff and Non-Tariff Barriers, Services, Investment, and Innovation and Creativity (focusing on intellectual property rights issues). Ongoing Focus Group discussions in 2008 addressed priority issues such as foreign direct investment caps, intellectual property rights protection and enforcement, restrictive Indian telecommunications policies and market access for a wide range of manufactured and agricultural products and services. Noteworthy developments in 2008 included the agreement to launch negotiations on a bilateral investment treaty and India’s withdrawal of certain import restrictions on fresh fruit.

Another development in the 2008 bilateral U.S.-India trade dialogue was the Private Sector Advisory Group’s (PSAG) identification of key policy issues on which it would provide strategic recommendations and insights to the TPF. The membership of the PSAG includes trade experts and representatives of private sector organizations in the United States and India with in-depth knowledge of international economic and trade policy. The PSAG identified completion of a bilateral investment treaty as its top recommendation.

In addition to the February 2008 TPF meeting, Ambassador Schwab and Minister Nath met a number of times in the context of the Doha Round negotiations in an effort to find common ground in the pursuit of an ambitious outcome.

With regard to intellectual property rights, the United States has been working constructively with India to improve its IPR regime. The U.S. dialogue with India takes place through the TPF’s Focus Group on Innovation and Creativity, the Commerce Department-led High-Technology Cooperation Group, and work by the U.S. Government’s Intellectual Property attaché stationed in New Delhi and other government officials from multiple U.S. Government agencies. There has been some progress in India’s protection of intellectual property rights, including through the introduction of the proposed Drugs and Cosmetics (Amendment) Bill 2008 that will increase penalties for spurious and adulterated pharmaceuticals, and create a Customs recordation system. However, India still needs to improve its copyright regime to address issues related to protection of digital works on the Internet, strengthen its patent regime, including by clarifying the scope of patentable subject matter, provide effective data protection for pharmaceutical and agricultural chemicals, and increase enforcement against piracy and counterfeiting.