South-South Co-operation
At the beginning of 2007 India was expected to offer approx 700 items at 6 digit level on a DFQFMA basis to products originating from LDCs over a 5 year period although it was understood that there would be a ‘negative’ list of excluded products.
At the time, RTFP contracted CUTS International to undertake a pilot project to look at trade cooperation between India and Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. One of the activities was to conduct advocacy with the Government of India to persuade it that trading in at least some of these ‘excluded’ products would not harm Indian agriculture. CUTS also looked at information about markets, standards to be adhered to, complicated rules of origin provisions, lack of infrastructure etc and made recommendations on how to overcome them.
The work has yet to be finalized but in the interim, the Prime Minister of India announced the following concessions in April 2008:
“I am happy to announce a Duty Free Tariff Preference Scheme for Least Developed Countries on the occasion of the first India – Africa Summit. Under this scheme, India shall unilaterally provide preferential market access for exports from all 50 least developed countries, 34 of which are in Africa. The Scheme will cover 94% of India’s total tariff lines. Specifically, it will provide preferential market access on tariff lines that comprise 92.5% of global exports of all Least Developed Countries. Products of immediate interest to Africa which are covered include cotton, cocoa, aluminium ores, copper ores, cashew nuts, cane sugar, ready-made garments, fish fillets and non-industrial diamonds.”