INDIA’S entry into the list of Mutual Acceptance of Data (MAD) in the assessment of chemicals being benchmarked by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has come as a shot in the arm for the country’s multi-crore domestic chemical industry.
Following in the footsteps of South Africa and Brazil, India is the third emerging economy to join this pact, which could help pave the way for the removal of a potential non-tariff trade barrier between countries for marketing chemicals.
The inter-governmental think tank of rich nations, in a communiqué issued in Paris recently, said that the OECD MAD system is a multilateral pact which saves governments and chemical producers close to £ 150 million a year by permitting the results of a variety of non-clinical safety tests done on chemicals and chemical products like industrial chemicals and pesticides to be shared across OECD and other signatory nations.
As a result of India’s entry into the pact, all results of non-clinical chemical safety testing conducted in India would automatically be accepted by all other participating countries.
Welcoming India’s admission into the OECD-specific pact, the OECD Secretary-General, Mr Angel Gurria, said India's engagement in OECD’s work on chemical safety and its membership of the MAD system was indicative of the mutual benefit of closer ties between OECD and major emerging economies.
The MAD mandates that testing should be carried out using OECD standards for test methods and data quality. Governments need to verify compliance of laboratories with these standards by using the OECD agreed procedures.
Source : Exim News Service - NEW DELHI, April 19