International trade policies and sustainability of nano-textiles

Abstract

While a considerable part of developments in the field of industrial and technical textiles involves nanomaterials, there are increasing challenges faced across the world in their acceptability and sustainability. Their potential adverse impact has been documented in the scientific literature. European Commission and USEPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency) have already come up with regulations that govern these materials. In future, therefore, we can expect trade sanctions by these countries on exports of nano-textiles from countries like India. In this paper, we shall discuss the technical literature that points towards potential hazards of nano-textiles and the policy aspects currently in place. Further, we employ a widely used global economic (Computable General Equilibrium) model (GTAP – Global Trade Analysis Project) to evaluate the economic and business impact of such sanctions quantitatively, in a stochastic and comparative setting.