European Commission asked India on Tuesday to address the problems that are coming in the way of bilateral trade and favoured lowering of customs duties and doing away with non-tariff barriers to ensure level playing field for the importers.

"Trade is a two-way relation … India too will have to carry out its trade reforms to its logical conclusion for enabling greater elasticity in its trade sector," Ambassador of the Commission Michel Caillouet said at a Federation of Indian Export Organisations organised meeting in New Delhi.

The trade reform means lowering customs duties to global levels, doing away with non-tariff barriers and rationalising the fiscal structure for giving a level playing field to the importers, he added.

Referring to the problem areas, which the EC comes across from the Indian exporting community, he said the main complaint relates to what in technical jargon is called 'issues relating to sanitary and phytosanitary measures' or SPS issues.

The SPS issues pertain to a host of primary and processed products including milk, eggs, poultry meat, fishery goods and mollusks, he added.

In the export of these products the main problem arises due to the presence of some chemicals or antibiotics, which are not allowed into the European Union.

He also highlighted Indian exporters' repeated claim that food standards in the different member states vary and create complications.

India-EU bilateral trade is of the order $20 billion per annum. EU is the largest trading partner of India and India ranks at 20 as EU's overseas trading partner.

The Commission would launch a euro 15 million Trade and Investment Development Programme in 2003 together with the ministry of commerce and industry to educate the Indian exporting community about various standards prevalent in the EU.

A major part of TIDP initiative would provide technical assistance towards building international SPS norms in India for the benefit of its exporters, Caillouet said.

The Commission also comes across issues on increasing quota limits for some agriculture goods like mushrooms and sugar and reduction of tariffs for products like gherkins and cut flowers, he informed.

On the controversy surrounding the generalised system of preferences benefits on textiles as also those products, which are adversely affected by anti dumping duties, he said, "Indian is the second largest beneficiary of EU's GPS scheme".

While exporters on both sides are concerned about anti-dumping issues, its remedy can only be found at the development assistance negotiations under auspices of the World Trade Organisation, he said.

Raising concern over anti-dumping duties and the tariff preference accorded to Pakistan by EU, FIEO vice president Subhash Mitttal said, "There is genuine fear among our exporters that these two steps together may even wipe off our exports to the EU market after 2004."