Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Friday pitched for scaling up ties between the two countries. In a separate event, Yellen pitched ‘friendshoring’ for India, which is global trade route away from China.

Addressing the media jointly with Yellen at the start of the Ninth Indo-US Financial Partnership here, Sitharaman said that bilateral talks will impart greater vigour to the long-standing relationship with the US. “India deeply values its relationship with the US as a trusted partner. We share a traditionally strong bilateral relationship underpinned with shared values, convergence of interests on wide ranging issues and vibrant people-to-people contact,” the FM said.

The 9th meeting of the Forum is being held against the backdrop of India preparing to assume the G20 presidency. Yellen said India-US collaboration would not only promote economic growth and stability, but it can also be instrumental to supporting economic prosperity across the Indo-Pacific region. “Looking ahead, we are also eager to discuss our shared priorities as India assumes the presidency of the G20 in the coming weeks,” she said.

Friendshoring strategy

Earlier, in another event, Yellen touted her ‘friendshoring’ strategy of aligning trade and investment within a group of countries with shared values, in an apparent attempt to cut the role of China. Speaking at an event at Microsoft Inc’s facility just outside Delhi, she said US-India are natural allies who can show the rest of the world that democracies can deliver for their citizens despite volatility and war.

“For too long, countries around the world have been overly dependent on risky countries or a single source for critical inputs,” she said while adding that US is proactively deepening economic integration with trusted trading partners like India. The two nations share an interest in strengthening their supply chains in a world where certain governments wield trade as a geopolitical weapon, Yellen said as she introduced the concept of ‘friendshoring’.

Other issues discussed

A joint statement issued at the end of Indo-US Financial Partnership meeting said that in the context of the conflict in Ukraine, both countries discussed the current headwinds to the global macroeconomic outlook including increased commodity and energy prices as well as supply side disruptions.

They reemphasised our commitment to the central role of multilateral cooperation in addressing these global macroeconomic challenges. Both sides affirmed their commitment to debt sustainability, transparency in bilateral lending, and coordinating closely on extending fair and equal debt treatment to countries facing debt distress. 

“We reiterated our commitment to step up our efforts to implement the G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatment in a predictable, timely, orderly and coordinated manner. We acknowledged the importance of working through MDBs (Multilateral Development Banks) to help India access and mobilize available financing to support development objectives, including climate action. We plan to continue engaging on these and other global economic issues both multilaterally and bilaterally,” the statement said.