{"id":35432,"date":"2018-10-31T17:22:52","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T11:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=35432"},"modified":"2018-10-31T17:22:52","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T11:52:52","slug":"mps-fret-over-trade-deficit-with-asean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/mps-fret-over-trade-deficit-with-asean\/","title":{"rendered":"MPs fret over trade deficit with ASEAN:"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/todays-paper\/tp-business\/mps-fret-over-trade-deficit-with-asean\/article19563057.ece\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">MPs fret over trade deficit with ASEAN<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Context<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce has questioned the government for suggesting that the country\u2019s increasing trade deficit with ASEAN nations is due to imports of essential commodities and has strongly recommended that India seek better market access for its products and services with the 10-nation bloc.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>The committee\u2019s report<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India suffers a trade deficit in respect of five ASEAN members \u2014 Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei and Lao PDR over 2015-16 and 2016-17, with the biggest deficit emerging in trade with Indonesia, the committee has noted.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Under the existing trade agreement, Indonesia has committed a tariff elimination on 50.1% of its items which is the least in comparison to other ASEAN member States,\u201d the committee said.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The least tariff elimination by Indonesia has resulted in biggest trade deficit from India amongst all ASEAN member States.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The committee chaired by BJP MP Bhupender Yadav has said India must seek better market access for goods where India has an edge over ASEAN nations, like leather goods and pharmaceuticals, to progress the trade balance.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The committee stressed that its inspection of the Indo-ASEAN trade dynamics assumed significance given that this year marks 25 years of the formal partnership.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Ministry of Commerce apprised the panel that the imports of essential commodities \u2014 coal, petroleum and edible oils \u2014 from ASEAN constitute a significant percentage of India\u2019s imports.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If these essential commodities are excluded, India will have a better or positive balance of trade position.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The committee also held that \u2018if this approach or argument is subscribed, then there was no need for the trade agreement with ASEAN.\u2019<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The import of essential commodities will continue with or without the trade agreements.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The better market access in terms of higher export has not materialized and this is a matter of concern.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Committee would like to impress on the Department that various trade instruments\/agreements must aim towards better market access,\u201d it asserted.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As per official data, among the \u2018essential commodities\u2019 cited by the government, imports of coal fell by 2.5% in 2016-17 from a year earlier, while vegetable oil imports grew by 3.7% to touch $6.19 billion in 2016-17.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Crude petroleum imports rose by almost 50% in 2016-17, but exports of petroleum products surged 58.4%.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Among the other top 10 commodities imported from ASEAN, consumer electronics grew at the highest pace in 2016-17 (18.33%), followed by ships and boats (12.82%), electronic components (11.72%) and telecom instruments (9.17%).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India\u2019s second-largest export commodity to ASEAN \u2014 buffalo meat \u2014 saw a 4.92% increase in 2016-17 to reach $2.78 billion.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ASEAN is India\u2019s fourth largest trading partner with total trade in 2016-17 at $71.69 billion, constituting almost 11% of India\u2019s overall global trade of $660.6 billion.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Total exports to ASEAN in 2016-17 stood at $31.07 billion, while imports were $40.63 billion, creating an adverse trade balance of $9.56 billion.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Effect on Food processing sector<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The committee also found that while exports of agricultural products from India faced high import tariffs and barriers, leading to a sharp drop in trade, India\u2019s food processing sector had raised concerns about the \u2018near absence of quality norms\u2019 for import of cheap processed food products from ASEAN countries.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Committee recommends the Department to look into cheap import of poor quality processed food products.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It desires that appropriate quality norms may be fixed for import of such products from ASEAN as well as other regions of the world,\u201d its report said.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Textiles<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Similar concerns have been raised by the committee about the imposition of safeguards and non-tariff barriers by ASEAN nations on exports of India\u2019s textiles and pharmaceuticals.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The committee demanded that the government must ensure reciprocity in the reduction of tariffs in products like steel.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Others<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has also sought efforts to improve India\u2019s access to services trade in ASEAN, with a focus on increasing the footprint of Indian banks and financial institutions in the region.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) comprises of Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MPs fret over trade deficit with ASEAN: Context The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce has questioned the government for suggesting that the country\u2019s increasing trade deficit with ASEAN nations is due to imports of essential commodities and has strongly recommended that India seek better market access for its products and services with the 10-nation bloc.&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/mps-fret-over-trade-deficit-with-asean\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">MPs fret over trade deficit with ASEAN:<\/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-35432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704784562},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35432","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=35432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}