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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (10066)	12/17/1999 8:24:00 AM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

FOCUS-India Lukewarm as US Trims Nuclear Test Sanctions (adds India's reaction paras 3-4) Friday December 17, 8:09 am Eastern Time By John Chalmers NEW DELHI, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The United States said on Friday it would trim the list of Indian government agencies and private firms hit by U.S. export curbs after New Delhi's nuclear tests in 1998. The sanctions easing comes ahead of a planned goodwill visit by President Bill Clinton to India early next year, and analysts said it was timed to encourage New Delhi to sign the global treaty banning nuclear tests. India welcomed the move as ``a step in the right direction.' But branding such restrictions ``unjustified and counter-productive,' foreign ministry spokesman Raminder Singh Jassal said India still expected the entire list to be scrapped. U.S. officials in New Delhi said the Commerce Department would drop 51 entities from a list of 212 barred from buying U.S. goods that might have nuclear or other military applications. ``The action is based on a consensus decision...to more tightly focus the sanctions on those Indian entities most directly involved in proliferation activities,' the United States Information Services (USIS) office in New Delhi said. NO EASING FOR PAKISTAN In a statement, the USIS made no reference to the 92 Pakistani entities also sanctioned by Washington after Islamabad answered its arch-rival's underground nuclear blasts with tests of its own. USIS said the 51 Indian organisations, which included several ordnance factories, would now find it easier to obtain U.S. goods and technology, especially non-sensitive products. However, both India and Pakistan will continue to be denied access to dual-use technologies. Controls on such technologies, which could be used for civilian nuclear and space programmes, have been imposed because of their potential military spin-offs. Washington announced its decision hours before the start of an Indian government exercise to reach a cross-party consensus on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). ``This move is quite significant. It comes at a time when India is discussing whether to sign the CTBT or not,' said Kanti Bajpai, a disarmament expert at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University. ``I think that Washington is trying to send a message, essentially trying to encourage the debate forward in India and reassuring India that it is poised to do business in India,' Bajpai told the Star Television news channel. A GESTURE BEFORE CLINTON VISIT Last year Clinton cancelled plans to visit South Asia after the tit-for-tat nuclear tests. He is now expected to come to India -- but not Pakistan -- toward the end of the next quarter to build on improving diplomatic and economic ties between Washington and New Delhi. A Western diplomat in New Delhi, who asked not to be identified, said: ``I'm sure there was some thought to giving something to the Indians in view of the president's visit.' Since India shocked the world with its nuclear trials in May 1998, Washington has led Western efforts to corral New Delhi into the global regime for nuclear arms control. Although a cornerstone of that regime was rocked in October by the U.S. Senate's vote against ratification of the CTBT, the administration has kept up pressure on India to sign the pact. India has declared a unilateral moratorium on underground nuclear tests, but says it needs time to reach a political consensus on joining the CTBT. There was no official estimate of the export business likely to be revived by the easing of the sanctions. Last year India protested to the World Trade Organisation against the restrictions, arguing they were unjustified and violated U.S. obligations under the trade body's rules. In that protest, it pointed out that the entities targeted included institutes of mathematics, physics and technology and a firm whose primary business was fertiliser production. biz.yahoo.com