ANNOUNCEMENTS
Extensive recognition has been given to the contribution that international trade standards and conformity assessment systems are making to facilitate the conduct of international trade. Although WTO stipulations permit countries to adopt technical regulations and standards, it does not encourage countries to use these measures as protectionist measures. However there have been plenty of studies which argue that these measures have been used as protectionist measures especially by the developed countries. Against this backdrop, my study aims to study the impact of environmental standards on export competitiveness of environmentally sensitive goods (ESGs in the context of India’s trade with EU).
High environmental standards maintained by developed countries have the potential to restrain the market access of ESGs; as share of ESGs in the total exports of developing nations is very high, therefore it is imperative to identify these products. The present study has attempted to identify ESGs disaggregated at the four digit level of HS classification on the basis of environment related notifications submitted to WTO by member countries as no previous efforts have been made to identify them.
The analysis of trade data reveals that there has not been a significant effect of environment related NTMs on exports of Indian ESGs to EU. Supporting this argument, calculation of the BRCA between India and EU also showcased that India has maintained competitiveness in ESGs in general; Bilateral trade between India and EU has expanded over the years and has been driven mainly by the respective demand for each other’s goods. BRCA for India has remained greater than 1 for most of the ESGs. One of the major reasons behind this could be increased world trade or increase in environmental expenditure by Indian firms making the goods environmentally compatible as per the EU norms.
