John Smirnow, Vice President of Trade & Competitiveness at SEIA, appeared before the House Subcommittee On Commerce, Manufacturing & Trade on June 27, for the hearing of the India and US trade dispute case. The topic of the hearing was "A Tangle of Trade Barriers: How India's Industrial Policy is Hurting U.S. Companies".
In the Hearing John focused on India’s growing use of an industrial policy which he believes is discriminating against U.S. solar exports and, thereby, provides an unfair competitive advantage to India’s domestic solar manufacturers.
He said "India’s solar policies have increasingly turned inward. In 2010, India adopted a local content requirement as part of the country’s National Solar Mission. While we fully support India’s desire to promote solar manufacturing, both as an economic development tool and a solution to climate change, India’s government support measures must be consistent with the country’s international trade obligations. India’s solar local content requirement, however, is a direct violation of those obligations.".
"The U.S.-India WTO dispute follows on the heels of a recent WTO finding that Ontario,
Canada’s local content requirement for solar goods, which is substantially similar to India’s,
violated Canada’s WTO obligations. In response, Canada has indicated that the solar program
will be brought into compliance with the WTO decision, which we presume means that Canada
will remove the local content provision. India should follow Canada’s lead and, likewise,
remove the local content provision from the National Solar Mission".
To Read the Complete Testimony Click here
