- India’s Commerce Minister is planning to meet the U.S. Trade Representative.They will hold talks to resolve the differences over trade and investment.
- However,government officials have said that almost all issues have been resolved between the two countries.But the core area of disagreement which is market access is also close to being resolved.
- The Indian government is demanding greater market access in the U.S. for dairy products,medical devices and information and communication technology(ICT) services.On the other hand,the US is demanding increased market access on a wider range of products in India.
- India and the United States had differences over a range of issues like (a) India’s new rules on e-commerce that affected firms such as Amazon and Walmart (b) Data localisation rules which forced foreign companies to store their data locally and (c)Trade imbalance between India and the US.
- India has also imposed long pending retaliatory tariffs on 29 US products after US had withdrawn Generalized system of preferences (GSP) for Indian exporters.
- GSP is a preferential tariff system extended by developed countries to developing countries.It is a preferential arrangement in the sense that it allows concessional low/zero tariff imports from developing countries.
