Thursday and Friday, 27-28 September, 2007

Venue:On the 27th: Long Champ Hall, The Taj Mahal Hotel

On the 28th: Napoleon Hall II, Hotel Le Meridien

Hosted by: Indian Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways

Number of Participants: About 70

Indian Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways, the National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project of India (NATRIP), the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA), JASIC, WP29 Secretariat, JAMA、JAPIA、Automobile Type Approval Test Department of the National Traffic Safety and Environment Laboratory of Japan, etc.

1. Greetings and Presentations

Mr. Dash from MoSRT&H on Rulemaking in India

Explanation was given on the legislative system in India. A committee has been established with related organizations under MoSRT&H to examine automobile related laws. Laws are examined and established also in line with the ECE Regulations. India’s type certification system and COP (emissions only) were also explained.

JASIC

JASIC explained MRA based on the 1958 Agreement, the concept of mutual recognition of vehicles based on the Agreement in JASIC’s long term project plan, and the rights and obligations of the contracting parties to the 1958 Agreement.

Mr. Ramos from the UN/ECE WP29 Secretariat

At the outset of the speech, Mr. Ramos said that discussions would be necessary within India to a satisfactory extent on its plan about accession to the 1958 Agreement. Then, he explained the history of WP29 and the 1958 Agreement in comparison with the 1998 Agreement to which India is a contracting party, and emphasized the importance of the accession to the 1958 Agreement.

He also said that a guideline document was agreed upon at WP29 last March on the requirements of technical services designated by the contracting parties.

The Global Technical Regulations set under the 1998 Agreement are unified standards but there are no established method for adoption by the contracting parties and certification requirements. Several modules and options are also possible. Therefore, there is no guarantee that contracting parties which have adopted the same gtr have exactly the same regulation. On the contrary, the contracting parties to the 1958 Agreement are not allowed to modify any ECE Regulations set forth by the 1958 Agreement when they adopt them. It means that contracting parties applying the same Regulation share exactly the same standard, which is the complete harmonization of the standard, and MRA can be thus achieved.

The WP29 Secretariat does not check whether the contracting parties observe their rights and obligations because the 1958 Agreement is established on the basis of mutual trust.

JAMA

JAMA supports India’s accession to the 1958 Agreement and expects India to adopt the ECE Regulations (without modifications) as a contracting party. JAMA would like to suggest that India adopts the ECE Regulations step by step, for example, with regard to emission control, first Euro 2 and then Euro 4 without adopting Euro 3.

Automobile Type Approval Test Department of the National Traffic Safety and Environment Laboratory of Japan

A briefing was made on the National Traffic Safety and Environment Laboratory of Japan. Then, the organization of the Automobile Type Approval Test Department as a sole technical service in Japan, certification test procedures and facilities were explained in details.

Mr. Sharma from NATRIP on India’s Accession to the 1958 Agreement: Key Issues and Challenges

NATRIP believes that India cannot fully enjoy advantages from its accession to the 1958 Agreement if the country does not adopt the ECE Regulations. Therefore, the current domestic laws should be examined and evaluated.

Under the decision making system by two-thirds majority, NATRIP thinks that non-European nations are in disadvantageous positions since EC now have 27 votes under the 1958 Agreement.

ACMA-SIAM on Perspective on the 1958 Agreement

ACMA-SIAM supports India’s accession to the 1958 Agreement as industry. But to realize that, there are many issues to be tackled such as the improvement of internal systems for the certification system based on the ECE Regulations. ACMA-SIAM would like to make a roadmap and advance preparations toward the accession.

2. Panel Discussion

Panelists:

Mr. Sharma (NATRIP), Mr. Bhanot, Mr. Ramos (UN/ECE/WP29), Mr. Dash (MoSRT&H), Mr. Marathe (ARAI), Mr. Akiba (JASIC), and Mr. Sehgal (MoSRT&H)

Main Discussions

MRA based on the ECE Regulations are often thought as being done only among the contracting parties which have adopted the given Regulations, but this is not the case. Explanations were made repeatedly on this point.

The 1958 Agreement permits a self-certification system as a means of type certification. In fact, Korea has not adopted any ECE Regulations though it is a contracting member to the Agreement because it has introduced a self-certification system. There was high interest in this point among the participants and many questions related to this were asked.

There was an opinion that non-European nations were at disadvantage under the majority voting system of the 1958 Agreement due to European members having many votes, in comparison with the unanimity rule of the 1998 Agreement. The WP29 Secretariat said that this system had been working fairly well without serious problems. In the case of WMTC gtr, voting was put off at AC3 and discussions were continued as a result of respecting the opinions of India, which was not a contracting party to the 1998 Agreement at that time. Referring to this case, the Secretariat responded that different opinions of participating countries including observers were fully respected for proceeding with discussions at WP29 (whether under the 1958 or 1998 Agreement) and that currently there were no problems.

Final Remark by Mr. Dash fromMoSRT&H

Discussions on various issues toward India’s accession to the 1958 Agreement were made at the meeting for the past two days. The Ministry will soon have the domestic committee discuss the future direction based on the outcome of this meeting and make a report, and then will determine government policy. His remarks indicated further development toward the accession to the 1958 Agreement. The meeting was then closed.

Comments:

We have a feeling that both Indian government and industry at practical levels have studied well about the 1958 Agreement and that they are serious about the accession to the Agreement. Since several organizations are involved in the legislation and certification systems for automobiles, they recognize the challenge of streamlining regarding specific methods to adopt the ECE Regulations in the future and role sharing among certification bodies and technical services and are examining how they should tackle this challenge toward the goal of accession.

On the other hand, some participants did not yet fully understand even the basic point that the contracting parties to the 1958 Agreement mutually certify their regulations with each other once they have adopted the ECE Regulations.