Following Japan and South Korea, India becomes the third Asian country to get the STA-1 that is Strategic Trade Authorization status from the US. This is a good news for India as this will pave a way for the sale of the high tech products to New Delhi especially in sectors like defense and civil space.
In Asia, India is the 3rd country to get this status, however, throughout the world, it is 37th on the list. This news caught fire after the US federal notification was issued yesterday.
America Send Strong Message to China by making an Exception for New Delhi, India
Technically speaking the US have been giving this status to the countries that hold their membership among the four export control regimes including – Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), Australia Group (AG), Wassenaar Arrangement (WA), and the NSG. It finally came to the US attention that India is a member of 3 of these 4 multilateral export regimes. The fourth membership request to NSG is still pending because of the political opposition from China.
This exception of New Delhi has been made with the intention of sending a strong message to China along with the rest of the world as the closest ally of America, Israel has yet to be given this status.
The federal notification states that as India is the member of MTCR, AG, and Wassenaar and is a “Major Defense partner”, it is listed among the favored country groups for the purposes of license requirements, availability of the license exception, and license application review policy. In simple words, the membership favored country groups reduce the required number of licenses and increase the number of license exceptions available.
This is the reason why BIS believes that this rule will reduce the paperwork burden to the public. This STA-1 status given to India might turn out to be a great benefit for the country.