The Hindu Business Line : US concerned over India's trade surplus

INDIA'S trade surplus with the US is likely to top $10 billion in the current fiscal. The country' exports to US is expected to reach $15 billion (last year $13 billion) while imports from the US is likely to languish in the $3-4 billion band.

According to Mr Alan Larson, US Under Secretary for economic, business and agricultural affairs, the US Government and industry continued to be apprehensive about India's commitment to ensure a level playing field between the two countries.

Raising concerns over slow pace of trade liberalisation in India, Mr Larson said the imbalance in the trading relationship continues to expand and India's trade surplus with US has more than tripled in the last decade.

"Because India has only slowly opened its market to the outside world, this growing imbalance raises concerns in the US Government and in American industry about India's commitment to ensure there is level playing field," he said at the Indo-US Economic Summit here on Thursday.

Countering the US view, the Union Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office Mr Prithviraj Chavan said the country was committed to reforms including FDI and it had honoured all international commitments and would continue to do so.

India also has concerns about certain US policies, including free movement of persons, restrictions on high technology exports and pharmaceuticals, he said.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr David C. Mulford, US Ambassador to India, said that sustained reform was vital for India. "Reform that reaches India's grassroots is more important than the precise level growth achieved by this new government," he said.

Cautioning that progress in India was uneven, Mr Mulford gave a list of `must-do' items that included enlisting the private sector in building a world class infrastructure, more reforms for efficient use of capital, harmonisation of regulations on intellectual property rights and bio technology and deregulation in agri-business.