21 July 2026, Room CR

Thank you, Madam. Chair.

We welcome the delegation of India, led by H.E. Mr. Agrawal, Commerce Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

We thank the Government of India and the WTO Secretariat for their extensive preparatory work for this trade policy review. We also thank the discussant, Ambassador Patriota, for his insightful comments on India’s trade policies and practices.

We congratulate India for its economic and trade development during the review period, with GDP growth at an annual rate of over 7%. In fiscal year 2024/2025, India’s exports of goods and services reached a record high of USD 825.3 billion. India’s digital economy grew at twice the pace of the economy, and its digitally delivered services are particular competitive, registering a trade surplus of over USD 200 billion in 2025.

India’s rapid economic and trade growth benefited from improving the ease of doing business for investors, promoting exports and facilitating trade, which are key elements of its broader reform agenda, as stated in India’s policy statement. In this regard, we hope India could provide more facilitative business environment for foreign companies that export to or invest in India.

India’s rapid economic and trade growth has also benefited from the rules-based WTO system. As stated in its policy statement, India is committed to strengthening the multilateral trading system. We welcome India’s deposit of its instrument of acceptance of the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies. We hope India could ensure its trade policy is more compatible with WTO rules and principles.

In this regard, we would like to highlight several areas of concerns, which are also shared by many members as reflected in their advance questions:

– Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes. While we understand India’s objective of developing domestic manufacturing capacity, these measures seem to raise concerns about consistency with the SCM Agreement.

– Quality Control Orders (QCOs). Certain mandatory certification requirements appear to be more trade-restrictive than necessary. In addition, prolonged delays for reviewing applications by foreign manufacturers—both for new certifications and for the renewal of existing ones—adds many difficulties to exporters.

– Additional tariffs on certain information and communications technology products, which appear to be inconsistent with India’s ITA commitments and is not conducive to the integration of India’s domestic industry into the global ICT value chain. 

– Trade remedy measures. We note that India has initiated 226 anti-dumping investigations during the review period and 170 anti-dumping measures in force as of June 2025.

Madam Chair,

The global economy is facing severe turbulence, and the international economic and trade order has been seriously disrupted. China and India share the same commitment to preserving and strengthening the multilateral trading system. And we hope India could take more concrete actions to help furthering WTO’s work, including WTO’s development agenda.

With respect to the Agreement on Investment Facilitation for Development, we hope India could join consensus on its incorporation into Annex 4 of the WTO Agreement, with the understanding that the IFDA doesn’t create any obligations on India as a non-participant and could deliver substantial benefits for the Global South.

With respect to dispute settlement reform, the importance is underscored by many, including India and China. If India has no intention to join the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement, we hope India could be open to suggestions on how to solve trade disputes in a rules-based way in the absence of an appellate body.

China and India are among the largest developing countries in the world, and we are also major trading partners to each other. China stands ready to work with India at WTO, to preserve the fundamental principles we both value, and to enable the WTO to fulfil its functions more effectively and inclusively through reform.

Finally, we thank India for its replies to China’s written questions and wish India a successful trade policy review.

Thank you.