India going for trade liberalisation with US

India has decided to follow the trade liberalisation path with the US, and both countries are negotiating a bilateral trade agreement (BTA) for which in-person talks are expected to begin next month, senior government officials said Tuesday.

- 

India and the US are starting negotiations in virtual mode from this week. They have also finalised and signed the terms of reference (ToRs) for the pact.

India and the US have been engaged in negotiating a bilateral trade agreement (BTA) since March. Both sides have targeted to conclude the first phase of the pact by the fall (September-October) of this year, with an aim to more than double the bilateral trade to USD 500 billion by 2030 from about USD 191 billion currently.

Negotiations of the various track groups for the pact will start virtually within this week.

“We hope to get into physi-cal mode of negotiations may be in the second half of May. So we are on schedule as far as the BTA and its negotiations are concerned,” Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce Rajesh Agrawal told reporters here. He is also the chief negotiator of India for this pact.

Speaking on the agreement, Commerce Secretary Sunil Bar-thwal said that the agreement, if finalised, will open huge op-portunities for both India and US businesses.