India is well within its rights to seek a trusted and safe supply chain for its digital ecosystem, said a senior government official, after the US, China, Korea and Taiwan raised concerns on import restrictions imposed by New Delhi on laptops, computers, servers and other IT products.
The concerns were raised in a meeting of the World Trade Organization.
The official, who did not want to be named, said any intervention from the WTO in matters of security and trust would be unwarranted, adding that the government had a “zero tolerance, zero compromise” stand on building a trusted digital backbone and ecosystem.
“Nobody today who is selling will want any disruption because nobody wants the status quo to change. Our goal is very clear, and we are determined to ensure digital ecosystem buildout and growth is only via a trusted supply chain, especially when we are just going to take off, and the entire internet is going to be built on servers and cloud and data centres and so on.
“So, what we certainly want to be sure of is that the data centres and laptops that power the internet are built as trusted,” the official said.
“Security and trust are not something that the WTO can intervene in. We are determined to build a trusted digital backbone digital ecosystem and on that we have a zero tolerance, zero compromise policy,” the official added.
The concerns were raised in a meeting of the WTO’s committee on market access on 16 October in Geneva. On 3 August, India restricted the import of laptops, tablets, all-in-one personal computers (PCs), and ultra-small form factor computers and servers, with immediate effect allowing them only through licensing, citing risks to national security. It pushed back the start to October, following a clamour from companies, the majority of which were large foreign players.