India is opposing a move by the US, South Korea and Japan to expand the scope of the NAMA (non-agricultural market access) negotiations at the World Trade Organisation to include re-manufactured or second-hand goods.
Government officials told Business Standard that though the three countries had not submitted a formal proposal to the WTO, they were lobbying to press for market access in re-manufactured goods in the NAMA agenda.
"There is a clear understanding that the NAMA negotiations will be limited to brand new goods only, and will not include re-manufactured goods. We oppose the move," a commerce ministry official said on Wednesday.
Officials said that out that the issue of used goods was a sensitive one, and most countries had put severe restrictions on imports of such goods.
Export of re-manufactured goods has a huge scope in the white consumer goods sector, which includes computer hardware, auto parts and automobiles.
The proposal also underlines the significance of the automobile industry in the US.
It accounts for 3.5 per cent of US's GDP and had an employment base of close to a million people in 2003. In the US, it also accounts for 13.4 per cent of steel consumed, and 74.3 per cent of natural rubber and 31.4 per cent of iron sold annually.
At present, under the NAMA negotiations, WTO-member countries have asked the WTO secretariat to work out a formula for the conversion of specific duties in the industrial sector to their ad-valorem equivalents.
While there is no set time-frame for such a conversion, officials said the progress on the NAMA negotiations would be linked with the progress on agriculture.
