September 6, 2008 ☼ arms control ☼ Economy ☼ energy security ☼ Foreign Affairs ☼ IAEA ☼ India ☼ liberalisation ☼ non-proliferation ☼ nuclear weapons ☼ power ☼ Security ☼ United States
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
According the the Nuclear Suppliers Group, its guidelines “are implemented by each NSG participant in accordance with its national laws and practices. Decisions on export applications are taken at the national level in accordance with national export licensing requirements. This is the prerogative and right of all States for all export decisions in any field of commercial activity and is also in line with the text of Article III.2 of the NPT…” To understand what this will mean in practice, just read this report from Bloomberg.
The waiver means that companies including France’s Areva SA, Russia’s Rosatom Corp. and Japan’s Toshiba Corp. will be able to export nuclear equipment to India. General Electric Co. and other U.S. companies will have to wait until Congress ratifies a 2006 trade pact backed by President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
General Electric, the world’s biggest maker of energy- generation equipment, said Aug. 25 that it may lose contracts in India to French, Russian and Japanese rivals if Congress doesn’t ratify a U.S.-India nuclear deal soon after the agreement wins approval from the Suppliers Group.
Rice said the U.S. has talked to India about the potential competitive disadvantage.
“I think they recognize and appreciate American leadership on this issue,’’ she said.”Because of that I think we’ll have ways to talk them about not disadvantaging American companies.’’
Still, she said “the best thing would be to get it through Congress.’’ [Bloomberg]It is understood that there is a tacit agreement that the first commercial deals will involve US companies…as long as the US Congress does not prevent it. The non-proliferation ayatollahs are up against the General Electrics on this one.
As for the Indian government, the real job begins once the party is over. Negotiating the nuclear deal with the United States, IAEA and the NSG was the easy part. The hard part involves liberalising the power industry. See energy security begins at home; Mr Advani sees the light and the uranium at home.
Related Link: The problems with India’s power industry regulations. The NSG saga covered at Idaho Samizdat.
If you would like to share or comment on this, please discuss it on my GitHub
Previous © Copyright 2003-2024. Nitin Pai. All Rights Reserved.