"Indian industry should be ready to take on competition with minimal protection. In fact, the Government should have abandoned its "populist" economic stance much earlier, to provide opportunities to these units, especially after becoming a signatory to the WTO." Says, Dr. A S Harish, Senior Officer, The Vysya Bank Limited.
The Exim Policy in the first year of the new millennium for 2001-2002 under the commitments made to the World Trade Organization (WTO), has to completely phase-out Quantitative/Import Restrictions (QRs). The lifting of QRs has been a gradual process and the abolition of QRs on 715 products on April 1, 2001 is not a new phenomenon - except that the last list comprises largely "sensitive" products on which import restrictions have been maintained to the very end.
It
may be noted that there was no total ban on imports of items,
which were on QR list. They could be imported against licences
by the government canalizing agencies and also against Special
Import Licences (SILs). The SILs were issued to exporters
since mid-1990s as an incentive and could be traded and used
to import products in the QR list. Moreover, WTO law is not
inflexible with respect to tariffs. It contains safeguards
and other measures that allow countries to protect specific
industries threatened by a surge in imports and to protect
against all imports if they are at a level, which jeopardizes
their balance of payments.
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