India moots new regime to tackle valuation tiffs

NEW DELHI: With rules of origin turning out to be the most contentious issue in free trade agreements, India has mooted evolving an international valuation (Inter-val) database to tackle valuation disparities and disputes both at the regional and global level.
India, which has signed an FTA with Sri Lanka, is currently negotiating FTA’s with Thailand, Singapore, South Africa and Mercusor. In fact, differences over the rules of origin — which are intended to safe-guard both countries from FTA misuse — have delayed the finalisation of FTA’s with Singapore and Thailand. Simply put, the FTA should not be used to bring in goods produced by other countries at the low FTA tariff rates.
The proposal to evolve an international valuation database was mooted by customs authorities at the World Customs Organisation (WCO) Asia-Pacific heads of administration conference held at Auck-land recently. India cited its efforts in developing a national import data base, to bolster its case for Inter Val, said senior officials.
The WCO is an inter-governmental body with 159 member countries and its mandate is to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency in cus-toms administration.
India also made out a case for having a separate group on commercial frauds to tackle issues such as over-invoicing of exports and under-invoicing of imports which have more than just revenue implications. Following the suggestion, member countries have agreed to formulate a regional strategy to combat commercial frauds.
The member countries of this group include, among others, China, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Hongkong and Pakistan.
Officials said that concerns of the developing world on security and customs facilitation issues -- which figure in the priority list of the ECO — were also flagged by Indian revenue officials.