Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday asked the US to restore the Generalised System of Preferences for Indian exports of chemicals and allied products.
"In view of India's compliance with the World Trade Organisation agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights, there is simply no rational behind the US denying duty-free benefits to Indian exports," a Chamber release said.
About 764 tariff lines are excluded from the US GSP programme and most of these fall under the area of chemicals and allied products.
India's total exports to the US in 2002 stood at $678.5 million out of which only $87 million were admitted duty-free under the GSP programme, it said, adding, for all these groups India's share in the US global imports was less than one per cent.
Restoring GSP benefits to these items would result in a relatively modest loss of tariff revenue for USA, it said, adding, as per statistics, the potential loss of the US tariff revenue would be at around $22 million even if the duty-free benefit is extended to all the identified product groups.
The Chamber said India's patent laws were in line with the WTO standards and the recent initiative in the area of patents reinforce the case for immediate restoration of GSP.
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