Ahead of US President Barack Obama’s visit to India, industry chamber CII has suggested that the two countries need to communicate more to remove misunderstandings and highlight new areas for cooperation.
While India enjoys a strong relationship with the US, the CII paper said that major transitions in the geostrategic sphere require elevation of the India-US partnership to a more intense and deep level.
“The perception in the US seems to be that India is curtailing market access for US companies. Issues such as the civil nuclear agreement, FDI in multi-brand retail, taxation demands, and others are gaining mind space in the US administration, and US companies have pushed their own agenda substantially to the detriment of the overall relationship,” the paper noted, adding that this resulted in Congressional and trade enquiries into Indian trade practices, placing the country on a wrong footing.
As a way forward, the two countries need to capitalise on key areas of bilateral cooperation. The paper suggests sustained interactions to help boost investor confidence, carefully crafted campaigns in the US to brand India as well promote the US-India relationship as a whole, and road shows for ‘Make in India’.
US and India could cooperate in areas such as manufacturing, defence co-production, digital infrastructure, higher education, skills and vocational education, sanitation and hygiene, joint research and development, technology, renewable energy, among others, it said.
According to Government data, India is the US’ 11th largest merchandise trading partner, 10th largest export destination as well as its 10th largest source of imports in 2013. US services trade with India has also grown from $10.06 billion in 2005 to $32.51 billion in 2011.