Senior officials from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) are all set to visit New Delhi from June 23-24 as India and the US are looking forward to intensify negotiations on a proposed interim trade agreement.
The high-level discussions is aimed at finalising the first tranche of the deal, Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal said on Monday, IANS reported.
During the monthly trade data briefing, Agrawal shared that the USTR delegation will be holding talks with Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and senior Indian officials. “Our expectation is discussion will be centred around giving final touches to the first tranche of the deal as well as the larger Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) that has been under discussion,” Agrawal said.
Besides concluding the interim agreement, Agrawal said that the discussions are expected to focus on advancing negotiations on the broader BTA being worked out between the two sides, as per IANS report.
This comes after a round of talks was held earlier in the month. During that time, the USTR delegation talked about various aspects of the proposed trade pact with the Indian officials.
After the discussions from June 2-4, the government said that both sides deliberated on trade in goods, non-tariff measures, customs and trade facilitation, economic security alignment, as well as other areas of mutual interest.
In February, India and the US issued a joint statement that outlined a framework for an interim agreement between the two sides based on reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade. It had reaffirmed the commitment to continue negotiations on a comprehensive bilateral trade agreement.