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Where is India going wrong???US issues new challenge to India over solar power
©AFP
The US has intensified a trade row with India over its national solar programme by launching a new challenge and accusing New Delhi of doing little in response to its previous criticism.
The move underscores how solar energy has become a bitter battleground in global trade and reflects an increasingly fraught relationship between the US and India.
Michael Froman, the US trade representative, said on Monday that the US was launching a second challenge via the World Trade Organisation to Indian requirements that if solar power developers want to sell in India, they have to use Indian-made solar products.
India is vital to the US because it is the second-largest export market for US solar products and its national solar programme – which is among the most ambitious in the world – is set to grow 20-fold during the next decade, the US said.
The US launched a similar challenge a year ago, but the office of the US trade representative said it had had little effect. When India launched the latest phase of its solar programme in October, it said half of the key equipment could now be imported, but it also broadened the types of technology that had to be Indian-made.
“Unfortunately when that came out . . . the problems remained,” said a US trade official. “They were slightly different but equally problematic, at least for us.”
The US and India have brought a series of cases against each other in the WTO and have tussled regularly over the direction of global trade rules.
Their broader relations have been strained by the arrest in New York of India’s deputy consul general on alleged visa fraud, a source of simmering resentment towards the US in New Delhi.
On solar power, Mr Froman said: “[India’s] domestic content requirements discriminate against US exports by requiring solar power developers to use Indian-manufactured equipment instead of US equipment.”
The new challenge, which takes the form of a request for consultations at the WTO, will supplement and not supplant the previous challenge from last February.
The US is confronting India’s national solar policy, which was launched in January 2010 and is aimed at reducing its chronic energy shortages and dependence on imported oil, gas and coal.
The government has set a target of installing 20 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2022 and six state companies have embarked on a $4.4bn plan to build the world’s largest solar plant in the Rajasthan desert.
The new WTO case comes as US businesses vent growing frustration with what they see as the protectionist policies of India’s Congress-led government.
The US trade official denied at a press conference that the two countries were heading for a trade war. “This is a normal part of a mature and significant trading relationship, as we have with India.”
Solar power has triggered a series of trade disputes as countries around the world try to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels by developing homegrown renewable power industries.
That has led to high levels of government support for the sector and the imposition of trade barriers to protect local industry, together with occasionally ugly fights in the WTO between the US, China and the EU.
Before India introduced its local content requirements, the US’s annual exports of solar products to the country were worth $119m, but they “have fallen off precipitously since then”, the US trade official said.
@kurup
Dont miss the dirty politics of US....on solar power plants too
Where is India going wrong???
Whilst some international trade is good and will always be there, generally nations everywhere should try to source any equivalent products they can from their own country, and build up skills to make them where they lack it. This leads to more stable markets,employment and greater self-sufficiency.But US wont have any of it.
Well we all know how US luvs to show its high handedness everywhere.Just that they're never prepared when they are returned in kind.They tried this with China too.There is nothing wrong with what India is doing and what US is. Both are looking out for their own interest. What is wrong with US trying to promote its own companies? Would India not try to do the same if US prohibited/restricted Indian companies?
You bet!!!
I want to see the NPP supporters bite their nails
Hail solar power plants!!
I hope it gets commissioned in march this year.
Well thats a completely wrong notion.Monsoons do reduce the capacity but it is never "NIL".And during monsoons . . . . . no power production
You bet!!!
I want to see the NPP supporters bite their nails
Hail solar power plants!!
I hope it gets commissioned in march this year.
125 MW from a solar power plant ......good news .....
Even though renewable sources should be pursued wherever possible,solar power don't have an upper hand when compared to NPP,especially in case of India. Please note that,this "large" plant has a capacity of mere 125MW,not even a quarter of what koodankulam can do.You bet!!!
I want to see the NPP supporters bite their nails
Hail solar power plants!!
I hope it gets commissioned in march this year.
Nuclear Power is the future of India Wait till out heavy salt water reactors are ready!
>>One ton of Thorium can produce same energy as 200 tons of Uranium, or 3,500,000 tons of coal and India has the largest Thorium reserves in the world amounting to 846,000 tons...
Well to the NPP supporters here...I have maintained that I am not against thorium reactors.Afterall they are relatively "clean".Even though renewable sources should be pursued wherever possible,solar power don't have an upper hand when compared to NPP,especially in case of India. Please note that,this "large" plant has a capacity of mere 125MW,not even a quarter of what koodankulam can do.
Nuclear Power is the future of India Wait till out heavy salt water reactors are ready! India has the largest Thorium reserves in the world
Even though renewable sources should be pursued wherever possible,solar power don't have an upper hand when compared to NPP,especially in case of India. Please note that,this "large" plant has a capacity of mere 125MW,not even a quarter of what koodankulam can do.