India has submitted a draft proposal to implement Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) quality control requirements on imports of polypropylene (PP) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) into India.
India's Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals (DCP) submitted two documents to the Technical Barriers to Trade committee proposing the imposition of the BIS quality requirements, according to documents by the World Trade Organization (WTO). Documents on PVC imports were released on 11 August, while those pertaining to PP imports dated 15 August.
Both documents were also accompanied by implementation notices to be published in the Gazette of India, but a publication date has yet to be decided at the time of writing. The implementation date for these requirements has also yet to be confirmed, but 180 days from its publication date is the preliminary start date in the Gazette of India. This would affect PP and PVC imports from all origins into India, according to market participants.
India has been tightening its quality control requirements on polymer imports in recent years. It announced BIS requirements for imports of polyethylene (PE) in 2021, but challenges and delays in certifying producers arose because of Covid-19. The deadline was postponed four times, with foreign PE producers now expected to be BIS compliant by 3 October if they want to continue exporting to India.
Indian authorities are simultaneously investigating the potential for quality control restrictions on PVC imports, with residual vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) content above two parts per million. But this has yet to be implemented and has mostly kept Indian buyers reluctant from purchasing carbide-based PVC imports from China.
