According to paragraph 53 of page 53 of the Report by the Secretariat, "import prohibitions [in India] are generally for health and safety reasons". However, the Report also points out that certain mobile handsets and mobile phones have been included in the list of prohibited goods.
Could India clarify the reasons for prohibiting the importation of those specific products?
Reply: Import of mobile handsets without IMEI No. and CDMA mobile phones without ESN/MEID is prohibited due to security risk involved in such imported mobiles.
Technical regulations and standards
Brazil 12:
According to Article 6.1 of the TBT Agreement, "Members shall ensure, whenever possible, that results of conformity assessment procedures in other Members are accepted, even when those procedures differ from their own, provided they are satisfied that those procedures offer an assurance of conformity with applicable technical regulations or standards equivalent to their own procedures".
Could India provide information on its initiatives, if any, to recognize equivalence to other Members' technical regulations or standards?
Reply: In pursuance of Article 6.1 of the TBT Agreement, the national standards body viz the Bureau of Indian Standards has entered into memorandum of understanding (MoU) for conformity assessment with their counterpart bodies from other members.
