Indian minister to visit US on Sept.22 for trade talks

India’s Trade Minister Piyush Goyal will visit Washington on September 22 to accelerate talks on a long-pending trade deal, following recent progress in negotiations resumed last week.

- 

“The delegation plans to take forward the discussions with a view to achieve early conclusion of a mutually beneficial trade agreement,” an official statement said on Saturday.

On September 16, a US delegation led by Brendan Lynch, Assistant US Trade Representative for South and Central Asia, met Indian trade officials headed by Chief Negotiator Rajesh Agrawal in New Delhi.

Trade discussions with US officials on Tuesday were “positive” and “forward-looking”, New Delhi said, after US President Donald Trump struck a more conciliatory tone following punitive tariffs on India over its Russian oil purchases.

But it was not immediately clear whether New Delhi would discuss the Trump administration’s HIB visa fee hike and the demand to cut Russian oil purchases, or open its agriculture and dairy sector for US companies, a major demand from Washington.

The Trump administration on Friday issued an executive order requiring companies to pay a $100,000 per year fee for an HIB visa, set to take effect from Saturday midnight, in a move that India said would hit its huge IT services industry.