By Arun Kumar, IANS
New York : Indian and US governments have asked a high-powered, bilateral private sector body to recommend incremental steps required to overcome obstacles and enable unfettered trade and investment between the two countries.
The request came from Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath and US Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab at the first meeting of US-India Trade Policy Forum’s Private Sector Advisory Group (PSAG) here Monday.
Nath and Schwab met the PSAG members, all leading trade experts, to discuss ways in which the group could help to inject strategic, policy-related ideas into the Trade Policy Forum.
They asked the group to examine where the two sides want to be over the next two to five years and to provide recommendations on the incremental steps that can be taken to overcome obstacles and enable unfettered trade and investment.
The PSAG is uniquely poised to support the two governments in the effort to strengthen the bilateral trade and investment relationship and, in the process, to deepen the bond between the United States and India, they said.
“The Private Sector Advisory Group provides an opportunity on an institutional basis to identify areas of mutual interest impacting bilateral trade,” said Nath.
“It is a unique arrangement, wherein both sides will engage to evolve a set of core ideas that will provide impetus to the bilateral trade and also promote transparency between the Trade Policy Forum and the private sector.”
“The US-India economic partnership is the strongest it has ever been, and trade has played a vital role in that development,” said Schwab.
“Results have been achieved by the Trade Policy Forum’s government-to-government dialogue. I look forward to taking on board the Private Sector Advisory Group’s recommendations for intensifying trade and investment flows in coming years.”
Members of the PSAG who attended the meeting included Isher Judge Ahluwalia, Chairman, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (Co-Chair); V. Govindarajan, Member Secretary, National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council; Lt. Gen. (ret.) S.S. Mehta, Director General, Confederation of Indian Industry and Habil Khorakiwala, President, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry from India.
From the American side, the PSAG members present included C. Fred Bergsten, Director, Peterson Institute for International Economics (Co-Chair); Carla Hills, Former US Trade Representative, currently Chairman and CEO of Hills & Co.; John J. Castellani, President, Business Roundtable and Ron Somers, President of the US India Business Council.