The Hindu Business Line : Pickering wants foreign equity norms relaxed further

MR Thomas Pickering, former US Ambassador to India and Senior Vice-President of Boeing Company, asked India to further relax norms for foreign equity participation to enable both the countries to develop and produce next generation technologies.

He told a meeting of the India-US high technology cooperation group that the regulations restricting foreign participation in joint ventures to 26 per cent of equity should be re-examined. Technology export controls in India as well as export compliance practices by Indian end users, will need to be strengthened to give private parties and the US Government comfort that leading edge technologies co-developed in India are appropriately used.

Mr Pickering said the US export licensing needs to be further reviewed, more on a case-to-case basis to permit the growth of the Defence R&D nexus and increase manufacturing capabilities in India. He said US companies should identify areas of technology that they are prepared to develop even at the risk of a dilution of ownership and control.

He said the US companies bear the burden of being unreliable suppliers largely because of dynamic relationship between the two countries. As the global technology leaders, the R&D and production costs tend to be higher than many of our competitors, Mr Pickering said.

He said India has several qualities that make it a `desirable' partner for the US defence industry. Some of these are a large and growing national market or buying capacity, world class engineering and R&D capabilities at a scale that cannot be replicated and an ability to produce advanced technologies at substantially reduced costs.

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