New Delhi, 10 Feb (PTI): India has submitted two papers in the World Trade Organization related to consumer protection and digital infrastructure part of the e-commerce sector to initiate discussion on the subject before deliberating a final agreement, government officials said on Friday.<\/p>\n
The country wants member countries of Geneva-based WTO to discuss all these issues ‘threadbare’ before initiating negotiations on binding commitments or rules on the e-commerce sector.<\/p>\n
Joint Secretary in the commerce ministry Darpan Jain said the e-commerce sector is rapidly growing across the globe and as it has implications on developing and poor nations, it should be discussed in a multilateral setting in WTO and not among a group of countries.<\/p>\n
At present, a group of 87 countries, mostly developed, are negotiating to frame a pact on e-commerce rules.<\/p>\n
These two papers, he said “will form a basis for discussion. We have not proposed any rules or any binding obligations”.<\/p>\n
“We are saying that plurilateral discussions have not discussed these issues in detail. So all members first need to discuss these issues. First let us have a threadbare discussion,” Jain told reporters here.<\/p>\n
A paper on consumer protection by India was submitted in December last year, while the paper on digital public infrastructure was submitted on Friday in WTO.<\/p>\n
In the last ministerial conference, the highest decision-making body of WTO in Geneva, members had agreed to reinvigorate work under the ‘Work Programme on E-commerce’ based on existing mandate and in line with its development dimension.<\/p>\n
Accordingly, it was decided to prepare papers for submissions on subjects of interest to developing and least developed countries to guide the discussions.<\/p>\n
“What we are saying is that before looking at (binding) rules, you (WTO members) need to first debate and discuss what are the pros and cons of different elements of e-commerce, how it can be advantageous to developing countries,” Jain said.<\/p>\n
Additional Secretary in the ministry Peeyush Kumar said that the current submissions are intended to bring focus on multilateral discussions on e- commerce.<\/p>\n
The paper of digital public infrastructure (DPI), he said, will be discussed in a meeting of the general council of WTO on February 21.<\/p>\n
In the consumer protection paper, India has listed out several new challenges and issues for consumers, relating to misleading advertising, online payment security, unfair terms, data protection, and dispute resolution.<\/p>\n
It has emphasized on the need to jointly address these issues by countries owing to rapid growth of cross border e-commerce, besides pointing to the wide gap in the level and standards of consumer protection across the world.<\/p>\n
In the DPI paper, India has outlined key challenges which limit the adoption of e-commerce and that includes domination by few companies and limited access to digital solutions due to copyright regimes and proprietary systems.<\/p>\n
The paper has urged members to exchange views on issues like constraints faced by developing countries in adoption and use of such infrastructure and ways to leverage DPI in e-commerce and services delivery.<\/p>\n
“These submissions would help provide an alternative paradigm to e-commerce discussions at the WTO. It would serve to raise issues of interest to developing countries and LDCs,” Kumar added.<\/p>\n
WTO is a 164-member multilateral body that formulates rules for global exports and imports and adjudicates disputes between two or more than two countries on trade-related issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi, 10 Feb (PTI): India has submitted two papers in the World Trade Organization related to consumer protection and digital infrastructure part of the e-commerce sector to initiate discussion on the subject before deliberating a final agreement, government officials said on Friday. The country wants member countries of Geneva-based WTO to discuss all these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-210651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-national"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}