No imports will be allowed without HSN code, says Piyush Goyal

No imports will be allowed without HSN code into the country, said Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, and Railways Piyush Goyal here on Wednesday.

Goyal, who was speaking at the 6th National Standards Conclave on the subject of 'Standards for Trade Facilitation' here said that henceforth there must be zero tolerance for substandard products and services from industry and consumers.

The government will support industry in every way to establish standards for Indian goods and services to meet international requirements so that brand India is recognised in the world as a provider of quality products and services, an official statement quoted Goyal as saying.

HSN stands for Harmonised System of Nomenclature. It was developed by the World Customs Organisation (WCO) with the vision of classifying goods all over the world in a systematic manner. HSN contains six digit uniform code that classifies 5,000 plus products and which is accepted worldwide.

"Unless Indian business and industry make standards its calling card, India will not be able to reach the target of a USD 5 trillion economy. The government is committed to establishing standards of Indian products and services to world-class levels which will enable our exports to be accepted globally due to the quality of goods and services," he said.

The Commerce and Industry Minister further said that it is an unfortunate reality for India that the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) entered into with other countries has not led to the growth of India's trade and business because the poor quality of the products and services that get restricted with non-tariff barriers when exported.

He further elaborated on this point with the number of Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) in countries like US (8000), Brazil (3879), China (2872) and India with only 439 TBTs. This illustrates the fact as to the manner in which India and rest of the world are looking at the concept of quality in products and services, said the Minister.

Goyal said the time has come to get out of the mindset of subsiding exports and adopt the mantra of 'zero defect zero effect' in order to ensure that emerging India will be the destination for quality products and services.

He said that the quality standards must be accepted as the reality of an emerging India, an India that wishes to be recognised as a country manufacturing quality products.

The Commerce and Industry Minister said the new Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Act is relooking at all standards for goods and services in order to balance the interest of consumers with that of the industry which will enable the culture of quality to take root in the country.

He urged BIS, FSSAI and other departments of the government, that are mandated to set up and establish standards, to work in mission mode so that goods and services produced and imported in India meet international quality requirements. This will help India to engage with the world on equal and reciprocal terms.