India and the US have decided to launch an Ocean Dialogue, which Secretary of State John Kerry said, is aimed at promoting sustainable development of blue economy.

“We are launching a promising new Ocean Dialogue — in order to promote the sustainable — and I emphasise sustainable — development of the blue economy, as we call it,” Kerry told reporters at the conclusion of the India US Strategic and Commercial Dialogue yesterday.

The world’s oceans are being challenged everywhere, he said.

“The fisheries of the world are either dramatically overfished or in a near extremis, and it is imperative for countries to come together in an effort to try to manage the fish stocks of the world and in order to make sustainable practices the practices that are accepted across the planet,” Kerry said.

External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj said the two countries have also decided to launch a new high-level dialogue between India’s foreign secretary and the US Deputy Secretary of State on regional and global Issues.

“We welcomed US reiteration of their support for India’s membership of the four major multilateral export control regimes, including the NSG,” she said.

During the Dialogue, the leaders also spoke of India’s aspiration for greater participation in internet governance organisations such as ICANN and related bodies. “We agreed to convene a track 1.5 programme to further cooperation on internet and cyber issues in this regard,” she said.

Swaraj said she and Kerry agreed to work towards forming India’s membership of APEC. “In my meeting with Kerry, we shared our strategic priorities, interests, and concerns on issues of mutual interest, including security and counterterrorism, confidences in India’s Act East policy, and the US rebalance in Asia,” she said.

Complementing India’s Enhanced Look East Policy, the US envisions an Indo-Pacific Economic Corridor that can help bridge South and Southeast Asia — where the Indian and Pacific Oceans converge and where trade has thrived for centuries, the State Department said.

Fostering these types of connections — physical infrastructure, regulatory trade architecture, and human and digital connectivity — will create linkages all the way from Central Asia to Southeast Asia, via South Asia, it said.

A more integrated South Asia where markets, economies, and people connect is more likely to thrive and prosper, it said.

During the January 2015 visit, US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to work together to increase connectivity across the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific Regions. IPEC operationalises this commitment, and the United States looks forward to implementing programs that support these objectives, it said.

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