Reply: Carve outs and S and D flexibilities are available under GPA.
Technical Regulations and Standards
New Zealand 14:
Report by the Secretariat (WT/TPR/S/249): Standards: para 193 194:
In paragraph 193, it states that about 84% of the 18,623 Indian standards are harmonised with international standards. This means that almost 3,000 Indian standards are unique. Paragraph 194 states that most Indian standards are voluntary.
Could India provide a breakdown of these statistics by sector? In which sectors are standards most and least harmonised?
We would like to know approximately how many of these unique standards are mandatory and how many are voluntary.
Reply: It may be clarified that out of those Indian Standards for which corresponding ISO or IEC standards exist, about 84% are harmonized (not 84% of 18623 Indian standards). In actual about 4800 Indian standards are harmonised to ISO or IEC standards.
The Indian standards have been categorized into 14 broad sectors. The number of Indian standards harmonized for each of these sectors is given in Annex 1 (file attached).
