India ratifies UN convention that will help it transport its goods through a global network

The TIR will boost India’s trade interests in the region at a time when China is developing its One Belt One Road project.

The TIR will boost India’s trade interests in the region at a time when China is developing its One Belt One Road project.

India on Monday said it had ratified United Nations Transports Internationaux Routiers Convention, a universal transit system for goods, in an attempt to improve its trade prospects in the region, reported Business Standard. India has thus become the 71st country to ratify the United Nations TIR Convention, as it is more commonly known.

TIR is the global standard for the transit of goods, and is managed and developed by the International Road Transport Union. By ratifying the convention, India will be able to better integrate its economy with global and regional production networks.

The IRU said in a statement that India’s accession to the convention “puts it at the centre of efforts to increase trade and regional integration across South Asia and other regions”. In March, the Union Cabinet had given its approval for India to join the pact.

TIR will also help India implement the World Trade Organisation’s Trade Facilitation Agreement, which it signed in 2016. Since the convention allows only approved transporters and vehicles are allowed to operate, it will help Indian traders use a fast, easy and reliable international system to move their goods. TIR will allow India to integrate its trade with Myanmar, Thailand, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, as well as to move goods along the International North-South Transport Corridor via the Chabahar port in Iran, and to access Afghanistan.

The TIR Convention will come into force in India in six months, and the IRU will work with India for training and development. The ratification of TIR can be seen as India’s effort to counter China’s One Belt One Road initiative. China, however, had ratified the convention in 2016 itself.

TIR Convention

The Convention on International Transport of Goods Under Cover of TIR Carnets (TIR Convention) is a multilateral treaty that was concluded at Geneva on 14 November 1975 to simplify and harmonise the administrative formalities of international road transport. (TIR stands for "Transports Internationaux Routiers" or "International Road Transports".) The 1975 convention replaced the TIR Convention of 1959, which itself replaced the 1949 TIR Agreement between a number of European countries.^[2] The conventions were adopted under the auspices of the (UNECE). As of January 2017, there are 70 parties to the Convention, including 69 states and the European Union.

The TIR Convention establishes an international customs transit system with maximum facility to move goods:

• in sealed vehicles or containers;
• from a customs office of departure in one country to a customs office of destination in another country;
• without requiring extensive and time-consuming border checks at intermediate borders;
• while, at the same time, providing customs authorities with the required security and guarantees.

The TIR system not only covers customs transit by road but a combination is possible with other modes of transport (e.g., rail, inland waterway, and even maritime transport), as long as at least one part of the total transport is made by road.

To date, more than 33,000 international transport operators had been authorised (by their respective competent national authorities) to access the TIR system, using around 1.5 million TIR carnets per year.

In light of the expected increase in world trade, further enlargement of its geographical scope and the forthcoming introduction of an electronic TIR system (so-called "eTIR-system"), it is expected that the TIR system will continue to remain the only truly global customs transit system.

Due to the large blue-and-white TIR plates carried by vehicles using the TIR convention, the word "TIR" entered many languages, such as Turkish,^[3] Polish^[4] and Portuguese^[5] as a neologism, becoming the default generic name of a large truck.