Indian officials to travel to US next week for consultations to finalize details of bilateral trade agreement.

India and the United States are holding consultations on a bilateral trade agreement covering 19 issues including goods, services, and customs facilitation. Before formal negotiations begin, Indian officials are expected to lead a delegation to Washington next week to hold talks with U.S. side for three days starting April 23 to further finalize relevant details.

Central News Agency quoted Press Trust of India (PTI) as reporting that the consultations will cover 19 items, with India and U.S. teams beginning talks on April 23 lasting for three days. The Hindustan Times pointed out that in order to push forward the trade agreement, the Indian official team will visit the U.S. for further consultations before officially launching the negotiation process.

U.S. Trade Representative's Assistant Trade Representative for South Asia and Central Asia Lynch led a delegation to visit India on March 25, meeting with Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Goyal and other officials. A few weeks later, India arranged the trip to the U.S., indicating that the bilateral trade agreement negotiations are accelerating.

According to The Times of India, this Indian delegation will be led by Assistant Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry Yagrao.

On April 9, U.S. President Trump announced that the reciprocal tariff measures would be postponed for 90 days. Both India and the United States hope to use this window period to promote the bilateral trade agreement negotiations to reach an agreement as soon as possible.

Data shows that India's trade surplus with the U.S. in the fiscal year 2022-2023 was $27.7 billion, further expanding to $35.32 billion in the fiscal year 2023-2024. Both sides have been holding consultations since March and hope to increase bilateral trade from the current approximately $191 billion to over $500 billion by 2030.

The goal of this trade agreement is to reduce or eliminate tariffs on certain goods as much as possible and simplify regulations to attract more investment. In recent years, the U.S. has been India's largest trading partner, with 18% of India's exports going to the U.S. and 6.22% of its imports coming from the U.S.

Source: rfi

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