By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, MAY 07, 2019: INDIA and the United States held the India-U.S. Bilateral Trade meeting in New Delhi today. Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, Government of India and Mr. Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce, United States of America co-chaired the bilateral meeting.

Both the co-chairs, Mr Prabhu and Mr. Ross appreciated the strong, robust and growing bilateral ties between India and the U.S. across the entire spectrum of trade and commerce. Both sides expressed satisfaction over the progress during the year 2018, with bilateral trade in Goods and Services registering a growth of 12.6% from $ 126 billion in 2017 to 2 billion in 2018.

India appreciated the USTrade Winds Indo-Pacific Business Forum and Mission initiative 2019, being held at New Delhi. The forum will bring together distributors, representatives and partners and enable them to increase sales by taking part in business-to-business meetingsfrom 8-10 th May, 2019, across India.

Both co-chairs also complimented the new bilateral private sector led Small Business Interactioninitiative, the US - India SME Forum, held today in the forenoon in New Delhi.This is thefirst event of its kind and would pave the way for collaboration and partnership between the U.S. and Indian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the areas of manufacturing and services.

Both sides also discussed various outstanding trade issues.Both sidesagreed to engage regularly at various levels to resolve outstanding trade issues by exploring suitable solutions, which are mutually beneficial and promote economic development and prosperity in both countries.

Both sides agreed to deepen economic cooperation and bilateral trade by ensuring greater cooperation amongst stakeholders, including Government,businessesand entrepreneurs.