By IANS,
Washington : India and the US have agreed to work towards making the Aviation Cooperation Programme (ACP) more productive for India in its efforts to modernise the civil aviation industry as it undergoes rapid expansion.
The agreement was reached during a June 10-12 visit here by a high level delegation led by Civil Aviation Secretary Madhavan Nambiar. He was accompanied by Director General of Civil Aviation Nasim Zaidi and Airports Authority of India Chairman V.P. Agrawal.
An agreement was signed between the US Trade and Development Agency and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation of India to fund a number of projects under the ACP.
The two sides also agreed that the next India-US Aviation Summit would be held in the US on mutually convenient dates in December 2009, an Indian Embassy release said.
The objective of the visit was to review the progress in implementation of the Open Skies Agreement signed in April 2005 and the Aviation Cooperation Programme (ACP) signed in June 2007 and to discuss issues of mutual concern, it said.
Nambiar recalled the steady increase of air traffic between the two countries since the signing of the Open Skies Agreement stimulating the bilateral economic partnership and strengthening people to people contacts.
The two sides discussed the future direction of the bilateral cooperation and agreed to work towards making ACP more productive for India in its efforts to modernise the civil aviation Industry and to meet the challenges of its rapid expansion in terms of safety, technology and communication support and air space management.
The Indian delegation held useful meetings with officials of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Department of Transportation (DoT) and the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), the embassy said.
This first senior-level official visit from India after the parliamentary elections also reflects the leading role of the civil aviation sector in the commercial and economic relationship between the two countries. Over 2004-07, India imported more than $11 billion worth of aviation-related products from the US.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])