Cabinet clears market access policy for electronic equiment

The Cabinet on Thursday approved a revised version of the Preferential Market Access (PMA) policy that will apply to the supply of electronic and telecom equipment that has security implications.

“PMA policy which is linked to telecom equipment and other electronic products having security implications has been approved,” a government source said after the Cabinet meeting.

Although the exact details of PMA could not be ascertained, the Prime Minister’s Office had asked the IT and Telecom Ministry in July to rework the framework and exempt telecom equipment or other technology products procured by private sector from the policy.

The previous version of PMA Policy approved by the Cabinet on February 2, 2012 called for giving preference to domestically manufactured electronic products that have security implications for the country, covering the government as well as the private sector.

The policy saw major opposition, mostly from U.S.-based groups. The U.S. government itself has limited import of technology products from Chinese companies on security grounds including cyber espionage threat.

On July 8, the PMO had said that “the revised proposal on PMA in the private sector for security-related products will not have domestic manufacturing requirements, percentage based or otherwise“.

According to sources, the revised proposal asked for including defence sector under the revised framework which was exempted in previous version of the policy.