Two-pronged approach: India steps up negotiation efforts for trade deals

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and a senior commerce ministry official will be in the US next week for engagements with the Trump administration, officials said on Saturday, embarking on separate but simultaneous visits that are part of a two-pronged approach by New Delhi to deepen economic engagement with potential trade partners.

- Rajeev Jayaswal

NEW DELHI:

The engagements in America, similar to recent talks with the European Union and the UK, are part of a carefully calibrated approach: the finance minister leads efforts to smoothen talks while commerce minister Piyush Goyal's teams engage in hard bargaining, these people said. "These visits may appear isolated and coincidental at first glance, but the current leadership in New Delhi believes in the whole-of-government approach for better coordination and expeditious resolution of matters in the nation's interest," one of them said.

The Union government in a statement on Saturday said Sitharaman will begin her trip to US and Peru on April 20. The visits will also include meetings with "the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the 2nd G20 finance ministers and central bank governor meetings, development committee plenary, IMFC plenary, and global sovereign debt roundtable meeting," the government said.