- Indian and United States Trade Representative(USTR) will meet to discuss various trade,economic issues and also to strengthen bilateral relations.
- This meeting comes after US President and Indian PM had agreed that trade issues need to be discussed and trade ministers of both countries should meet to resolve issues.
- The talks between the two countries had come to a standstill when both countries initiated trade measures against each other.
- India had imposed long pending retaliatory tariffs on 29 US products after US had withdrawn Generalized system of preferences (GSP) for Indian exporters.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.
- The trade between India and the US was worth $142.1 billion in 2018, with India having a surplus of $24.2 billion.
- Further,the US and India has issues that needs to be resolved such as (a)India’s Data localisation rules which forced foreign companies to store their data locally (b)Price controls on medical devices(Cardiac stents) (c)Tariff on ICT products (d)Lack of greater market access for the US dairy industry and (e)India’s e-commerce policy.
