Bilateral government procurement, collaboration on critical minerals supply chains, and the recent restrictions imposed on import of laptops, personal computers by India are likely to be discussed in the trade ministerial meeting between India and the US on Saturday in Delhi, two officials aware of the matter said. The two countries are also going to hold discussions on their last pending dispute at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over poultry products.
“Meeting will happen with USTR on Saturday. The discussions are a follow-up on the issues from the PM visit to the US. Many discussions started at that time, now follow-up discussions will happen on India becoming part of the critical minerals group, procurement system and getting a trade agreement equivalence,” an official said.
US Trade Representative Katherine Tai is in Jaipur to attend the G20 Trade and Investment Ministerial Meeting during August 23-25 and will then hold a bilateral meeting with Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Saturday.
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India and the US are also going to hold discussions on the seventh pending dispute between them at the WTO. Following the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US in June, India and the US had mutually resolved six trade disputes pending at the WTO in July. Three of the six disputes were initiated by India and the same number of disputes were also initiated by the US.
“We have mentioned that we have resolved six out of seven trade disputes. We are trying to resolve the seventh one also (a dispute related to poultry),” another official said.
On June 22, the joint statement issued by India and the US after the visit of Modi to the US had mentioned that the Indian Prime Minister had also expressed India’s interest towards being recognized as a Trade Agreements Act-designated country by the US to further enhance the integration of both economies and to further promote trade and investment between two countries. In this regard, the leaders had welcomed the initiation of discussions between both sides at an official level on issues related to bilateral government procurement.
“…we also want to be part of their (procurement) process, they also want us to be a part of our process,” the official added.
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On August 3, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) had issued a notification stating that companies must obtain a licence before importing laptops and other devices – to be implemented with immediate effect. Following the adverse impact, it issued another notification a day later which gave the industry a three-month reprieve till November 1.
The six trade disputes which were resolved included a complaint by India against the US with regard to the imposition of countervailing duties on certain hot rolled carbon steel flat products from India. The poultry case was filed by the US against India in the WTO in 2012. India has lost the dispute both at the panel as well as the appellate body levels.