Positioned as a major investment destination to the world, India is targeting to increase its bilateral trade with the US to $500 billion from current levels of over $100 billion, in the near term.
According to a recent joint report by PricewaterhouseCoopers Ltd. and Indo American Chamber of Commerce, bilateral relations between India and the US have been cemented further in the last two years with increased issuance of visas, visits by dignitaries, initiatives to combat terrorism, as well as trade, PTI reported.
“Both countries now aspire to increase bilateral trade to the tune of $500 billion from the current $100 billion plus annually,” the report said.
Further, it said that 10 sectors like aerospace and defense, banking, financial services and insurance, chemicals, dedicated freight corridors, energy and infrastructure have immense potential not just for domestic growth, but also for strengthening India’s position as a global business hub.
Other sectors mentioned in the report are ports and inland waterways, oil and gas, pharmaceutical and digitization. These 10 sectors are earning good dividends through the joint efforts of Indian government and industry, the report said.
Indo-American Trade
The Indo-American trade has broken every record, be it defense or agriculture, and the recent reforms in India like the goods and services tax will further push economic ties between the two nations, the US said on Monday.
The enhanced bilateral relations are a result of a significant increase in government-to-government dialogue, US Ambassador Richard Verma said.
“We have broken every record that we keep in every category. The highest two-way trade numbers ever between the countries last year has reached $109 billion—the highest defense trade numbers last year was $15 billion—we even did $6 billion cumulatively in agri trade,” he said at the USA-India Innovation Forum in New Delhi. It is a good story so far but we can do better, he said.
The recent reforms like the passage of the GST Bill, Bankruptcy Code, national Intellectual Property Rights policy and relaxation of foreign direct investment norms would help in further pushing the economic ties between the countries, he added.
Verma said India is working on improving ease of doing business and states too are competing with each other in this area.
The US believes this because India is currently the world’s fastest growing economy and it will have the largest middle class, college graduates, holders, and mega cities.
“...Two-third of the population is less than age of 35 and there will be massive investment in infrastructure... So, we are quite optimistic and we are quite excited about India,” he added.
