{"id":33325,"date":"2018-10-30T11:50:36","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T06:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=33325"},"modified":"2018-10-30T11:50:36","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T06:20:36","slug":"wto-india-hardens-stand-on-e-commerce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wto-india-hardens-stand-on-e-commerce\/","title":{"rendered":"WTO: India hardens stand on e-commerce"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/business\/india-hardens-stand-on-e-commerce-investment-and-small-firms\/article21418688.ece\"><strong>WTO: India hardens stand on e-commerce<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No to negotiations on binding rules in e-commerce; terms \u2018investment facilitation and proposed norms on small firms\u2019 as non-trade issues.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What happened?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>India has hardened its position at the World Trade Organisation\u2019s (WTO) meeting here not only on issues relating to e-commerce, but also against investment facilitation as well as the proposed norms regarding participation of small firms in the global marketplace<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Issue: Moratorium adopted by WTO in 1998<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On e-commerce, the issue pertains to a \u2018moratorium\u2019 that was included in the 1998 \u2018Declaration on Global E-commerce,\u2019 adopted by the WTO member nations in May 1998 at the global trade body\u2019s second Ministerial Conference (MC). The MC is the WTO\u2019s highest decision-making body.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What it stated?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>According to the WTO, the 1998 declaration on the \u2018moratorium\u2019 stated that \u201cmember countries will continue their current practice of not imposing customs duties on electronic transmission\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Moratorium gets extended at every MC<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This \u2018moratorium\u2019 \u2013 which is \u2018temporary\u2019 in nature &#8212; gets extended at every MC, which is held once in two years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But this time India\u2019s consent to the extension conditional<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>India said its decision on the matter will be subject to the decision of the other WTO members to extend a similar (\u2018temporary\u2019)moratorium on Non-Violation Complaints (NVC) under the TRIPS (Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property rights agreement).<\/p>\n<p><strong>NVC<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>NVC refers to a situation where a \u201cgovernment can go to the WTO Dispute Settlement Body even when an agreement (of the WTO) has not been violated (by another country)<\/p>\n<p><strong>India\u2019s concerns<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Some countries, particularly from the developed world, are demanding a \u2018permanent moratorium\u2019 on imposing customs duties on electronic transmissions<\/li>\n<li>India feels that such a move could reduce the negotiating leverage for developing countries to seek a \u2018permanent moratorium\u2019 on NVC.<\/li>\n<li>Such a scenario would hurt the generic pharmaceuticals industry in the world, including in India<\/li>\n<li>However, for the time being, WTO members have agreed not to use NVC, and this \u2018temporary moratorium\u2019 (agreement not to use NVC) keeps getting extended, like the one on electronic transmissions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Work Programme<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>India\u2019s decision on granting its nod to moratorium on electronic transmissions will also be subject to other WTO members agreeing to continue the e-commerce discussions under a \u2018Work Programme\u2019 based on the existing mandate as well as guidelines in the relevant WTO bodies as set out in the Work Programme<\/p>\n<p><strong>India\u2019s view<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>India\u2019s view is that gains from e-commerce must not be confused with gains from negotiating binding rules in this area<\/li>\n<li>It is for this reason that we support continuation of the 1998 Work Programme with its non-negotiating mandate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>On Other Issues<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On investment facilitation and the proposed norms on small firms \u201cshifting the priority from the Doha Development Agenda issues to non-trade issues like Investment Facilitation and small firms, for which there is no mandate, is difficult to accept<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WTO: India hardens stand on e-commerce Context No to negotiations on binding rules in e-commerce; terms \u2018investment facilitation and proposed norms on small firms\u2019 as non-trade issues. What happened? India has hardened its position at the World Trade Organisation\u2019s (WTO) meeting here not only on issues relating to e-commerce, but also against investment facilitation as&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wto-india-hardens-stand-on-e-commerce\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">WTO: India hardens stand on e-commerce<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704860722},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}