IGI Logo

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal has said that there is work ongoing with a number of economies, including the UK, on the issue of intellectual property (IP) rights and modernisation in an effort to improve Indian protocols. He said the process to harmonise with international standards is high on the government’s agenda because integrating with world thinking on standards and IP is important for the fast-paced growth of the Indian economy.

Goyal said ‘our effort is to improve the Indian protocols around intellectual property rights and areas associated with it, but I feel it will have to be a little more gradual process. Similarly, we are working very actively on quality standards in India. The BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) for non-food products and FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) on food products are trying to develop standards. Wherever it's possible, we are trying to harmonise also with international standards. But it's not possible in everything...we are roughly at about 90 per cent of our standards harmonised with what is generally accepted standards’.

Talking about the corporate tax levels in India, the minister was clear that India’s rates were at a comparable level having been reduced significantly in the last nine years. He said ‘we have been successful through G20 in getting the world to bring in a minimum corporate tax of 15 per cent.’