US trade panel begins critical hearings on Indian policy

The investigation will seek to analyse India's Intellectual Property Rights regime from 2003

On a strong request from American legislators and business chambers, the US International Trade Commission (USITC) has initiated an investigation on Indian trade, investment and industrial policies, for which it began a two-day hearing on Wednesday.

The investigation will seek to analyse India's Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime from 2003. USITC is an independently functioning state-funded agency, meant to provide advice on trade matters to the executive and legislative branches. The present investigation, the USITC has said, was begun "at the request of the Senate Committee on Finance and the House Committee on Ways and Means (meaning, two key panels of either house of the national legislature, the Congress). The Commission will deliver its report to the Committees by November 30."

"We are going to shine a light on what is going on," Linda Dempsey, vice-president of International Economic Affairs, National Association of Manufacturers, told reporters during a media teleconference. She said the US wanted India to "abide by" the global trading norms under the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Over the past couple of years under the Obama administration, the US had been extremely vocal about India's innovation climate and IPR laws across all sectors, especially in pharmaceuticals.

"We want a level field for American companies and what we are seeing is that India is continuing to follow restrictive trade practices. There has been a complete deterioration of the innovation climate, which is bad for innovation, bad for investment. We want to figure out a path forward," added Mark Elliot, executive vice-president, Global Intellectual Property Center, US Chamber of Commerce.

USITC said despite repeated request for consultation with the government in India, it had not got any satisfactory result. Hence, they were compelled to launch this investigation.

It has highlighted the rejection of a patent to Bristol-Myers Squibb's Sprycel and Novartis' Gleevec. The commission believes India is in violation of the TRIPS Agreement of WTO.

Citing the recent WTO dispute on solar panels, USITC also says India has been insisting on local procurement though this is not a part of the Government Procurement Agreement under the WTO. The investigation by USITC was initiated by a bipartisan panel of US Senate members Max Baucus, Orrin Hatch, Dave Camp and Sander Levin.