India to seek clarifications on Asean sensitive list

India will seek clarifications regarding the proposed sensitive list of trade items submitted by Asean at the next round of negotiations slated to be held in Jakarta from November 16 to 18. The trade bloc intends to undertake phased liberalisation of the items on this list by 2015-16.

India is still awaiting a formal response to its revised sensitive list of around 560 items. The earlier list had 864 items. New Delhi had submitted its revised list in August this year.

"We have examined the list of items submitted by Asean. Duty cuts on several of these items will be around 25 per cent on an ad valorem basis by 2015-16. Since the average prevalent rates in the trade bloc already allow around 25 per cent cut, there will hardly be any deepcuts offered to India on these items," a commerce ministry official said.

The sensitive list proposed by Asean members covers a range of products from agricultural items to chemicals and industrial products.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister's Trade and Economic Relations Committee is scheduled to meet this week to take a view on the open sky policy for Asean, which the commerce ministry favours.

However, the civil aviation ministry wants a phased opening up of the aviation sector. It contends that airlines of Asean member countries like Malaysia and Singapore are well established and Indian airlines cannot compete with them.

Officials said there was also a concern that as per the sensitive list, the coverage of trade in some countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand was far below the mandated 95 per cent.

"The Asean member countries have made it conditional for India to cover 95 per cent of the total trade under the proposed FTA. However, the sensitive list in case of some countries will ensure coverage of just 15 per cent of the trade," they said.

Officials said the sensitive list in case of Brunei covered nearly 60 per cent of its total trade, while it covered an average of 30-40 per cent in case of the other members.

Singapore has proposed inclusion of just one item in the sensitive list, while some other member nations have proposed inclusion of around 300 items.