Kerry and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj highlighted the priority areas in bilateral ties as they inaugurated the Indo-US Strategic and Commercial Dialogue.
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The United States and India now have the largest bilateral trade and investment flows ever recorded between the two countries, with total goods and services trade topping $100 billion in 2014.
“This strategic vision is also what I would appeal our business friends in the USA to imbibe while doing business with India“, she said.
Other engagements on the sidelines of the strategic and commercial dialogue include an official level India-US Health Dialogue and a meeting of India-US Joint Working Group on Climate Change.
“And then we have a very robust discussion regarding counter-terrorism, the Indian Ocean, maritime security, South China Sea, the South Asian challenges of the moment, as well as our challenges on a global basis for nuclear non-proliferation and climate change“, Kerry said.
He addressed the conference yesterday along with his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, and Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. And right now our economic connection supports hundreds of thousands of jobs in each of our countries, but we’re not satisfied because we all know that there are many more openings to explore.
Sangeeta Gupta, senior vice-president (events, research and communication) at the software industry lobby NASSCOM, said constant investigations against Indian technology companies have created an atmosphere of negativity, although these firms are ready to cooperate with the USA authorities. Both can take place simultaneously.
Responding to questions, both Kerry and Swaraj refuted reports that the India and U.S. meeting was aimed at China.
He also talked about the enduring relationship that the USA and India have enjoyed over the past four decades, and hoped that these ties would continue to develop with the same passion of the past. And I was already committed to the idea that the United States and India could work more closely together and get over the hurdles that existed during the Cold War period.
“The relationship has enjoyed new momentum and attained new milestones following the election of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi past year“. The awardees were introduced by Purna Saggurti, Chairman Global Corporate & Investment Banking, Bank of America Merrill Lynch who also serves as one of USIBC’s board of directors.
“Our joint effort will help make India-US partnership as President Barack Obama had said, one of the defining partnerships of the 21st Century”, Swaraj said.
The Sides agreed to explore opportunities for cooperation in the development of reference materials between the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in India and the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) in the United States. Meanwhile, we are looking forward to launching a new discussion on oceans conservation.
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“We will also stress the importance of technical cooperation and exchange between regulators and the need for establishing a technical dialogue”.
