Trade and Economic Relations:Total

Trade and Economic Relations:
Total bilateral trade in goods touched USD 62.8 billion in 2012, registering
growth of about 9% over the last year. Indian exports accounted for USD 40.5
billion, resulting in a trade surplus of around USD 18 billion. The merchandise
trade in first seven months (January to July) of 2013 was USD 38.4 billion,
growing at 7.4% over the same period last year. Total trade in services in 2010
(the last year for which the complete data is available) was USD 45.9 billion. In
2010, India’s exports to the United States reached USD 24.5 billion, and US
exports to India accounted for USD 21.4 billion. There are several dialogue
mechanisms to strengthen bilateral engagement on economic and trade issues,
including a Ministerial Trade Policy Forum (TPF) and a Ministerial Economic and
Financial Partnership. The last Meeting of India- U.S. Financial and Economic
Partnership was held in New Delhi in October 2012. The areas covered under
the dialogue include macro-economic policy, financial sector reforms &
infrastructure finance, anti money-laundering/ combating financing of terror (AML/
CFT) and taxation. India and U.S. are negotiating the Bilateral Investment Treaty
(BIT).
As part of the Economic Dialogue, a separate Commercial Dialogue has
been set up to cover (a) Trade Defence Measures (b) Small and Medium
Enterprises and (c) capacity building on Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs). For
greater involvement of private sector in discussion on issues involving trade and
investment the bilateral India-US CEO’s Forum was reconstituted in 2009. The
last round of the reconstituted CEOs’ Forum was held in July 2013 in Washington
D.C. Separately a Private Sector Advisory Group (PSAG) has also been created
consisting of prominent Indian and international trade experts to provide strategic
recommendations and insights to the US-India Trade Policy Forum.
An MoU on agricultural cooperation and food security was initialed in
2009, which replaced the India-US Agriculture Knowledge Initiative. This MoU
was formally executed on March 16, 2010 by the Deputy Chairman, Planning
Commission and the Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture.
There are three working groups under the dialogue: strategic co-operation in
food security; food processing, farm-market linkages and agriculture extension;
and, weather, crop and climate forecasting.