International Cooperation

INDIRECT TAXES

India has been a member of the World Customs Organization (WCO) since 15 February, 1971 and has acceded to the following WCO Conventions:

Customs Convention on the temporary importation of scientific equipments, 9 March 1971.
Customs Convention on the temporary importation of pedagogic material 4 December 1973.
Kyoto Convention, 1974 18 October 1976.
Nairobi Convention – 9 June 1977.
Harmonized system Convention 23 June 1996.
Customs Convention concerning facilities for importation of goods for display or use at exhibitions, fairs, meetings, etc. – 20 June 1988.
Nairobi Convention 20 June 1988.
ATA Convention 5 July 1989.
Agreement on Customs Valuation- 30 December 1994.
Johannesburg Convention 23 June 2005.
Revised Kyoto Convention- November 2005.

India has entered into Customs Mutual Administrative Assistance Agreement with EU, Israel, Russia, UK, Hongkong, Maldives, Uzbekistan, Iran, Egypt, USA, China, SAARC Countries, South Korean, Australia and Brazil.

The scope of cooperation under these agreements include exchange of information enabling detection of false declarations of value, description or origin of goods providing information on diversion of goods, authenticity of documents, maintaining surveillance over suspect goods, persons or means of transport.

NARCOTICS

Illicit drug trade is largely a trans-national business. Traffickers do not respect national boundaries and often try to make the best of the loopholes and asymmetries in different legal systems. International cooperation among policy makers and enforcement officers is therefore, an essential element of anti-drug trafficking efforts. There are three United Nations Conventions on drug related matters:

Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961
Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971
UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988

These Conventions listed the drugs to be controlled, laid down the kind of regulation to be imposed on each category of drugs, indicated the kind of punishment/penalty to be prescribed for drug offenders. These Conventions also established mechanisms for international cooperation among Governments and their authorities.

India is a signatory to all these Conventions and enacted the NDPS Act in 1985 which met our obligations under these Conventions.

India has been actively involved in all international operations on drug related matters such as Project Prism and Project Cohesion and Paris Pact. At the Regional Level, SAARC Countries signed a SAARC Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.

India also signed several bilateral agreements with other countries on cooperation in the field of drug control.

ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING

The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU-IND) signed bilateral MoUs with three countries namely Mauritius, Philippines and Brazil as on 30th June, 2008. The MoUs are to facilitate the exchange of intelligence between the two countries for the purpose of cooperation to gather, develop and analyze information concerning financial transactions suspected of being related to money laundering and terrorist financing.