By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, OCT 08, 2021: UNION Commerce & Industry Minister, Piyush Goyal, yesterday said that close partnership between India and the United States is central to a free, open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific region. He was addressing the United States – India Business Council's (USIBC) 46th Annual General Meeting and India Ideas Summit themed ‘From Recovery to Resurgence: reflecting the growing importance of global economic recovery amidst emerging healthcare issues and technological trends'.

Mr Goyal said that the world now looks at India as a reliable and trusted partner and a driving force in the world economy. Appreciating USIBC for bringing in ‘Unity, Strength, Inclusion, Boldness & Commitment' in India-US relationship, he lauded its efforts to act as a bridge to build strong India-US business ties for the last 46 years.

He said that India-U.S. relationship had developed to a global strategic partnership, based on our convergence on bilateral, regional and global issues and added that PM Modi and President Biden have been proactive in deepening our relations. Referring to PM Modi's visit to US last month for Quad Leaders' Summit, Mr Goyal said that the first in-person meeting of the two leaders was extremely fruitful.

Mr Goyal said that the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted that supply chains should not be based only on cost but also on trust. He added that India wanted to focus in areas where it has a Competitive advantage to become a bigger stakeholder in global value chains

Expressing concern over the increasing trust deficit in Post Covid world, Mr Goyal called for a resilient India-US relationship. Observing that India is recognized as a major defence partner of US, Mr Goyal also called for multiple dialogues across areas of energy, health, trade and innovation to improve our business to business relationships and provide the people of both countries with better services and opportunities.

Mr Goyal said that India is currently negotiating FTAs with like-minded nations like Australia, UAE, EU and UK and added that India has been focusing on strengthening 24 sectors where it has competitive and comparative edge. Speaking of a National Infrastructure Pipeline in the making, Mr Goyal said that India was working to boost investment, simplify its tax regime, liberalize its FDI policy and strive to encourage invention, innovation, research and development.

Emphasizing that the World now looked upon India for its openness, opportunities & growth, Mr Goyal said that India is now the 3rd largest Startup ecosystem in the world. He added that under the leadership of PM Modi, India today is set on the path of ‘Aatmnirbhar Bharat', a mantra which would make India even more open and empower it to work with the world nations from a position of strength.

Observing that India had leapfrogged from ‘Make in India' to ‘Make in India for the world', Mr Goyal said that India is strengthening its domestic Industry and will offer quality with cost-competitiveness. Mr Goyal said that from addressing a range of issues, from the pandemic to climate change, India-US partnership has a leadership role to play. “India and US need to leverage our complementary strengths in technology, finance, production and supply and enhance cooperation in Electronic manufacturing, Fintech, Ed-tech, pharma and health, biotechnology, etc”, he added. .