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Strategic Trade Authorisation – 1 (STA-1) is an elite list of trade partners of the United States, where the partners can avail advanced technology solutions from the US.

In a big boost for Defence, US has put India on the top list to sell advanced and sensitive technology from US. This move, in a US federal notification comes after 2016, when the US recognised India as a “Major Defence Partner”. This paves the way for India to avail high end technology from the US specially in the defence and civil sector.

India becomes the third Asian country after Japan and South Korea and the first from South East Asia to be given this status. The federal notification given on August 3 makes India the 37th country to get the STA-1 status, which is given to NATO allies. This is an exception made for India, which is yet to be given membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group or NSG.

Inclusion of India in the STA-1 comes as an exception because such status is only given to countries that are members of the 4 export control regimes, viz. MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime), WA (Wassenaar Arrangement), AG (Australia Group) and NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group). India is a member of all but the NSG. Hence India becomes the only nuclear-armed country in the world to get this status. India became a member of MTCR in June 2016, WA in December 2017 and AG in January 2018.

As per experts, this inclusion will send strong signals to China and globally, considering the fact the even Israel, a close and long term ally of US is yet to be given this status. The notification further said that this recognition facilitates and supports India’s military modernisaion efforts with the US as a reliable provider of advanced defense articles. This will also result in the BIS (Bureau of International Standards) to formally recognise under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), India’s membership in the WA multilateral export control regime.

So far, India was a member of the STA-2 list, along with Albania, Hong Kong, Israel, Malta, Singapore, South Africa and Taiwan.