Friday, August 19 2005 14:55 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: After submitting a joint paper with US on customs cooperation mechanism at WTO, India is preparing to submit more proposals on trade facilitation.

"We have already submitted a joint paper with US. We may be placing more papers in other areas of trade facilitation," Commerce Secretary S N Menon said in New Delhi.

Inaugurating UNTAD Ministry of Commerce DFID seminar on trade facilitation, he said India was playing a very proactive role in the multilateral negotiations on trade facilitation.

He said New Delhi was prime mover of the idea on having one multilateral body for customs violation and was actively working with its other partners on this.

Menon said the country has unilaterally initiated the reform process with regard to trade facilitation and introduced facilities like Electronic Data Interchange.

He said the domestic reform process could be dovetailed to International programme.

Asked about Maharashtra levying stamp duty on import consignments, he said he was taking up the issue with that state's Chief Secretary.

Ministry of Commerce Director Shashank Priya said New Delhi could consider a proposal on uniform standards in a customs union.

He pointed out that in a customs union where all members should have uniform standards and procedures, various members followed different procedures leading to confusion and additional costs on exporters.