New US law will impact $10bn manufacturing exports from India: experts

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

More than $10 billion worth exports from the manufacturing sector will be impacted if the United States implements the new unfair competition law, according to manufacturers and legal experts.

The law, which is now currently being practiced by Lousiana and Washington, is soon expected to be implemented across the United States and Indian manufacturers are being made aware of the law so as to enable compliance and fair trade practices.

Sunil Kumar Singh, an attorney specializing in the areas of Intellelctual Property Rights told Express the law allows only those manufacturers to export and sell either directly or indirectly through third parties through third parties, their products and articles, if they are using genuine information technology for their business.

Interestingly, a study conducted by US-based non-profit organization Business Software Allaince says that 64 per cent of illegal Information technology is used in India. “Currently, we export $45 billion of manufacturing goods to United States. If this law comes into being $10 billion worth manufacturing exports will be impacted,” says Singh.

Rajveer Singh, founder of ClusterKraft, a Delhi based consultancy firm which work towards the objective of medium and small medium enterprises cluster empowerment through Local Economic Development techniques, said his firm is working on sensitizing the manufacturers about the law.

“We have toured about 12 regions and plan to reach out to eight more regions across the country.On an average 600 manufacturers will be benefited by it,” he says.

Rajveer feels the law is more or less targeted at Chinese goods, which are flooding the US market, and Indian manufacturers have to capitalize on it.

“It is the need of the hour to pursue compliance on information technology on a committed note to have uninterrupted access to US markets, greater market share and healthy business relations,” he said.