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S Venkitachalam
New Delhi, May 26: India has appealed against the final report of the World Trading Organisation's dispute settlement panel involving a dispute with the US on removal of quantitative restrictions on imports of agricutural, textile and industrial products.
The appeal was filed before the appellate body of the WTO by India's ambassador to WTO S Narayanan in Geneva on Wednesday, says an official release issued by the commerce ministry.
The decision to file the appeal was taken by the government on Tuesday on grounds that bilateral negotiations with the US will not yield results.
The panel's ruling comes in the wake of a complaint by the US that India had been maintaining quantitative restrictions on imports for balance of payments reasons and therefore did not conform with the WTO agreements.
The panel recommends that its findings do not imply that quantitative restrictions must be removed instantly.
What is more, the panel suggests that India be given more than the 15-month period stipulated in itspreliminary report. The panel has also recommended that both US and India negotiate an implementation or phase-out schedule for lifting the remaining QRs maintained by India.
Barring the US, India's six-year phase-out plan beginning April 1, 1997, has already been accepted by the European community, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland and Spain (third party) through bilateral agreements. The plan is to remain valid till March 31, 2003.
The US had filed a case against India in the WTO against QRs on imports maintained for balance of payments reasons on 2,714 lines at the eighth digit level in the ITC(HC) classification which India had notified to WTO in May 1997.
As per the provisions of the dispute settlement mechanism, if there is no request for an appeal by the parties to the dispute, the panel's report is adopted as a dispute settlement body meeting held after this time period.
India had gone far beyond its commitment to the WTO in phasing out QRs on imports by shifting as many as 894additional items to the freely importable list and permitting imports of items through the special import licence route effective from April 1 this year.
This leaves only 667 items still remaining the restricted list of the export and import policy (1997-2002). Following changes announced in the policy on April 13, 1998, 227 out of 436 items had been transferred to the free list, going again beyond India's commitment to the WTO.
In 1996-97, about 460 items were transferred in a similar manner in line with the commitment to the WTO. So far, roughly, 8,000 items have been transferred from the restricted to the OGL list.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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