Ahead of visit, US industry asks Modi to deliver on reforms

The US industry has expressed its unhappiness over the slow pace of reforms in India, ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit to Washington next month. It has asked Modi to deliver on opening up of markets and tightening of intellectual property legislations.

The Prime Minister, who is scheduled to be in Washington on June 7-8 to address a joint session of the Congress, is likely to meet representatives of some top US companies during his visit.

“The US National Association of Manufacturers and the US Chamber of Commerce have written to the US government about their disappointment with India’s failure to open trade and investments further, despite promises made by the Modi government,” an official told BusinessLine .

The two industry bodies said Prime Minister Modi should make “concrete policy changes’’, including lowering tariff barriers and tightening intellectual property legislation, ahead of his visit, the official added.

Modi’s visit comes at a time when the two countries are trying to cooperate more in areas such as defence and infrastructure, but frictions, too, are intensifying in the form of disputes on the trade front.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar was recently in Washington to prepare for the Prime Minister’s visit. “While the two sides discussed the possibility of holding the India-US CEO forum during the Prime Minister’s visit, it was difficult to fit it in the available two days,” the official said.

The CEO forum is likely to be held at the time of the India-US Strategic and Commercial Dialogue (SCD) in India in August-end, a government official has said. While the US industry has its grievances against the BJP government, the Indian industry too wants Prime Minister Modi to discuss it’s set of woes, especially the issue of increase in visa fees, with the US officials.

“Some areas highlighted in the September meeting of the CEO forum have become even more significant now. For instance, the US has doubled the levy on short-term visas on IT professionals from India instead of removing it. The US has also refused to go ahead with the social security agreement with India,” the official said.

The US has been India’s largest export destination for the last few years accounting for about $40 billion of exports in 2015-16 that constitutes roughly a seventh of the country’s total exports. India’s imports from the US in 2015-16 were to the tune of $21 billion, comprising about 5 per cent of the country’s total imports.

In the first India-US SCD last September, the two sides launched a joint work stream on Ease of Doing Business. They agreed to exchange information and best practices on cross- border trade, and to continue commercial law-related initiatives on issues like insolvency and contract enforcement, and transparency.

The two sides also committed to accelerating progress in infrastructure collaboration, especially as part of the Smart City initiative of the Indian government.

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