During the meeting, Jaitley drove home the point that many Indian states are growing at 10-11 per cent and offer opportunity for U.S. investment.
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The Indo-US trade stood at Dollars 109 billion a year ago. “In fact, US affiliates of Indian-owned firms now employ more than 52,000 workers in the US”, Ms Pritzker told Press Trust of India in an interview.
At the strategic dialogue, India is also expected to lobby once again with the United States to garner the support of all member countries for India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which will allow it to trade in nuclear material and technology. There is “a great potential to increase bilateral trade between the two nations”, she said.
Fox, who is now on a three-day visit to New Delhi and Mumbai from August 28-30 to boost bilateral commercial ties, said: “UK is interested in forging deeper trade and investment arrangements with India”.
India’s most transformative tax reform in decades – the Goods and Services Tax or GST – was today praised by the USA as it spoke about bilateral trade ties.
During her India visit, the US Commerce Secretary will meet Indian entrepreneurs and participate in an event celebrating US-India cooperation on travel and tourism.
On sub-national engagement, Pritzker said: “Both US and Indian states play a vital role in driving economic growth and setting business climate policy”. The meeting is part of the second strategic and commercial dialogue in New Delhi.
Jaitley also said that foreign investment was important for India especially in the infrastructure sector.
“Though the credibility of Indian economy is high and India is attracting a lot of investments, we can get 9-10 per cent growth only when the global environment is supportive”, he added. “We applaud these reforms and urge the Government of India to prioritise their full implementation”.
He also expressed India’s interest to increase bilateral trade between the two nations and said that most of the concerns between the two countries have been either resolved or narrowed down to a large extent.
Pritzker said: “These include unclear tax policies, burdensome regulations, inadequate protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, and onerous localization requirements”.
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Jaitley further said that the Union Cabinet has approved a new model text for the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT), the new text of which has already been shared with the British government in April this year.
