India’s economic relationship with China ‘unfair’, lacking balance: Jaishankar

“We feel that the economic relationship with China has been very unfair and very unbalanced. We don’t have the same market access there, while they have much better market access in India,” Jaishankar said during an address at the Global Centre for Security Policy in Geneva on Thursday.

A working paper by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) published in 2022 had highlighted that Indian exporters face a range of non-tariff barriers in China, limiting market access for Indian exports, particularly in agricultural and pharmaceutical products. Non-tariff barriers refer to any measures, other than customs tariffs, that impede international trade.

On pharmaceutical exports to China, the EAC-PM paper noted that unlike other countries, China does not allow second-chance testing through a third-party lab when products are rejected in random sampling due to non-compliance found during testing.

“There is no redressal mechanism, and the ruling of the lab is considered final, leaving no option to appeal or contest the results. This comes at a significant financial cost to companies and has certain impacts on bilateral trade as well,” the paper stated.

The EAC-PM also pointed out that exports of mangoes and grapes to China are subject to the annual listing of approved facilities by the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China (GACC).

“Indian authorities have submitted a dynamic list, through the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), that can be verified online, showing products registered after a stringent recognition process by APEDA and the National Plant Protection Organization (NPPO). However, the list must be resubmitted every year, followed by additional requirements for video inspections,” the paper noted.

This annual re-registration process by the GACC, along with the hosting of the approved facilities list on their website, results in duplication of procedures, causing delays, increasing transaction costs, and creating trade barriers for Indian grapes and mangoes, according to the EAC-PM.

The EAC-PM also highlighted that high translation costs are a major challenge faced by Indian exporters in China, as documents notified by China at the WTO, which mention their standards and regulations, are either incomplete or written in Chinese. The paper suggested that one way to reduce these costs would be for China to adhere to the WTO-notified languages, which are English, French, and Spanish.

Often, China does not specify the product category it refers to when issuing sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) and technical barriers to trade (TBT) notifications. This forces Indian exporters to invest additional time and money in translating and gathering relevant documents from various sources.