Govt asks exporters to obey global standards to tap world markets
New Delhi: The government on Monday said exporters, particularly from the food and agriculture sectors, should strictly comply with global norms for quality and standards, or else they might lose their export market share to other countries.
Emphasising on the importance of adopting best standards for goods and services, Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia said it is critical to promote manufacturing, exports and enhancing participation of domestic industry into global value chains.
She said in the food and agriculture sectors, Indian exporters are repetitively facing trade barriers on account of compliance issues.
"Such situations are prevalent in discerning markets like the US, European Union and Japan and if Indian producers are unable to meet mandatory obligations for standards including the sanitary and phytosanitary (related with plants and animals) measures, we may lose our share of export market to other countries," she said.
Teaotia was speaking at the National Standards Conclave, organised by the commerce ministry and industry body CII.
She said promulgation of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures are very important as India receives so many alerts from these countries.
"We have initiated an inter-ministerial space where agriculture ministry, health ministry and agencies like Fssia, Export Inspection Council, Apeda and Mpeda are now working together to be able to respond more appropriately and efficiently to these alerts," she added.
She also informed that Indian National Strategy for Standardisation (INSS) will be released on Tuesday and urged the industry to give feedback on the suggestions made in this report.
INSS recommends wide range of policy directions such as standard settings, conformity assessment, accreditation, SPS and technical regulations as well as awareness building, training and education.
"It recommends an implementation framework for realising these goals, identification of the responsible agencies and related activities taken by them and time frames for achieving these milestones..it has a finite time," the secretary said.
