RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/TBT/W/93
24 September 1998
(98-3697)
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade Original:  English
INDIA'S EXPERIENCE ON TBT NOTIFICATION SYSTEM AND
PROCEDURES FOR INFORMATION EXCHANGE
Contribution from India
1. Under the WTO's Agreement on Technical Barrie rs to Trade, the Ministry of Commerce,
Government of India has appointed the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the national standards body
of India as the National Enquiry Point.  Information on Standards, Technical Regulations and
Certification Systems formulated and operated in India are notified by the BIS to the WTO for
circulation to other Members.
2. The Bureau of Indian Standards is fulfilling the notification obligations under the TBT
Agreement by:
(a) Issuing notifications of proposed and adopted technical regulations where no
international standard exists, when a period of 90 days is allowed for submission of
comments by other Members of the WTO.  A total of 46 notifications have been sentto the WTO since India accepted the TBT Agreement.  Notices on Technical
regulations, standards and certification systems adopted by the Government of India
are published in the Gazette of India by BIS.  Relevant standards/documents are made
available to the party concerned if requested.
(b) On request from a Member, a copy of the draft technical regulation is provided and
no fee is charged for this service.  Last date of submitting the comments is also
extended on request from Members.  In order to enable Members to send theircomments in time, BIS has decided to extend the period of comments from 60 days to
90 days.  So far 113 copies of the draft standards have been sent on request to various
Members, like the USA, UK, France, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia,
Hong Kong China, Malaysia, Thailand, and Philippines etc.  BIS has also extended
the comment period on request from Members, such as France, Thailand, USA andthe European Commission.
(c) BIS has entered into an agreement with standards bodies in the Russian Federation,
Germany, China, Israel, Turkey, Mauritius and Cuba.  The parties agreed to cooperate
towards the common goal of determining equivalence and of harmonizing the
activities in the field of standardization, quality assurance, and conformance testingwith the aim of facilitating mutual trade.  The parties also agreed to study each other's
organizational structure, procedure for laboratory testing, and laboratory accreditation
systems and upgrading these on mutually agreed criteria to enable mutual recognition
of test reports.  The notification about the mutual agreement will be sent to the WTO
and the ISO office in Geneva when the agreement with these countries is finalized forimplementation.G/TBT/W/93
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(d) BIS has accepted the Code of Good Practice, under the WTO TBT Agreement and
has notified the same through ISO/IEC Information Centre in accordance with
paragraph C of the Code.
(e) In accordance with the Code of Good Practice, BIS is publishing a Work Programme
for the publication of new and revised standards on an annual basis.  Notifications foravailability of such work programmes are issued regularly through the ISO/IEC
Information Centre in accordance with paragraph J of the Code of Good Practice.
I. WTO TBT ENQUIRY POINT
3. BIS also acts as the WTO TBT Enquiry Point for India and is performing the following
functions:
(a) Distribution of Notifications from othe r WTO Members to concerned organizations
in India and also interested industrial organizations.  Information on TBTNotifications received from other Members is compiled in a database, and also
published in monthly BIS publication "S tandards Monthly Additions" which is
distributed to different organizations within the country free of charge.
(b) On request from interested parties/organizations, the draft text of the Notification is
also supplied to them.
(c) Responding to all reasonable enquiries from other Members regarding matters
stipulated under Article 10.1 of the Agreement.
(d) Ministry of Commerce, Government of I ndia and BIS together are making joint
efforts to evolve/develop a National System of Notification of technical regulations,
standards and conformity assessment procedures.  A beginning has been made byapprising Central Government, State Government, Statutory Bodies and
Standardizing Bodies of the obligations under the TBT Agreement and also the
importance of the acceptance of the Code of Good Practice and other notification
obligations.  A National Level meeting of these bodies is being planned shortly.  It is
hoped that a suitable National Notification System will be evolved in the near future.
II. PERIOD OF COMMENTS
4. BIS has been implementing Article 2.9.2 of the Agreement regarding notifications but there is
a need to take some remedial measures to implem ent the notification procedures so that comments are
received in time by the notifying Members.  Extension of time-period for comments may be
considered from 60 days to 90 days, as the notifications take time to reach the concerned agencies
who have to give comments.
III. CODE OF GOOD PRACTICE
5. In accordance with paragraph J of the Code of Good Practice, BIS is publishing the work
programme on an annual basis in English language.  The Code however, calls for publishing of work
programme on a six monthly basis, which is difficult to implement in a developing country like India
due to resource constraints.
6. The use of the Internet, it is felt, contains the potential to greatly facilitate Members to
disseminate such information in a timely manner, and update it on a regular basis.  The BIS has noted
the suggestion by European Union that transparency of paragraph J of the Code of Good PracticeG/TBT/W/93
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under the TBT Agreement can be achieved in a more practical way through an Internet website where
up-to-date, comprehensive information could be made available in a user-friendly manner, and that it
should be recognized as an alternative to the published work programme.  However, BIS feels that
though the above is a good suggestion, in the current scenario some of the developing countries and
least developed countries will not be able to benefit from it because of the lack of internet facilitiesand infrastructure.  Thus, it is felt that though the Internet can be recognized as one of the measures to
disseminate information on the work programme, it should be ensured that all Members will also
publish and disseminate hard copies of the work programme as well.
IV. ENQUIRY POINT - RESPONSE FROM MEMBERS
7. Delayed response from Enquiry points of other Members greatly hampers a country's efforts
to provide timely and quick information on standards, technical regulations and conformity
assessment procedures of other Members to its industry, organizations and exporters.  This has anobvious adverse effect on trade among different Member countries.
V. TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
8. Developed countries who have established a National Notification System and whose
standardization bodies have accepted the Code of Good Practice and are meeting the notification
obligations should hold workshops/seminars and provide assistance for the benefit of developing
countries like India, so that the infrastructure in such countries can be upgraded in order to better
fulfill the obligations of Notification under the WTO TBT Agreement.
9. Developed countries who are using the modern technologies like Internet to store and
disseminate information on their standards, technical regulation and conformity assessment
procedures should provide financial/technical assistance to developing countries in order to help themcreate their websites so that this information can be utilised by all Member countries of WTO.
VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS
10. In conclusion, BIS would like to seek clarification on the following issues:
(a) Does the National notification system of developed countries include all
organizations in the country engaged in enforcement of technical regulations andconformity assessment procedures?
(b) Have all the standards formulating bodies of developed countries accepted the Code
of Good Practice and are they meeting the notification obligations?
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