US, India partnerships in high-value industries to facilitate $500 billion in bilateral trade

The US Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo’s recent visit to India concluded with some announcements on the US-India Strategic Trade Dialogue and an MOU on Semiconductors. The Commercial Dialogue was re-launched in accordance with the US-India Joint Leaders’ Statement of September 2021, with a renewed focus on future and emerging areas of bilateral commercial partnership.

As the bilateral goods and services trade between US and India has almost doubled since 2014, exceeding $191 billion in 2022, it signalled accelerated growth benefitting both countries. With the United States becoming India’s largest trading partner in 2022, both sides are taking further steps to enhance their commercial collaboration and tap into market potential across multiple sectors.  As both sides are envisioning further coordination on how best to foster an enabling environment for increased investment, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-up companies, the US Chamber of Commerce’s US-India Business Council believes this partnership in high-value industries will ultimately pave the way to shared goal of $500 billion in bilateral trade.

“Addressing the issues around export controls and technology transfers is a critical step to unleashing the ambitions of the private sector. If these dialogues succeed, they can unlock a new era of business-to-business cooperation in co-development and co-production for advanced commercial and strategic technologies. It is these partnerships in high-value industries that will ultimately pave the way to our shared goal of $500 billion in bilateral trade,” says Ambassador Atul Keshap, President of the US Chamber of Commerce’s US-India Business Council.

The dialogue adds momentum to work being done under the US-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET), which was launched with an industry roundtable at the US Chamber of Commerce in January. These are moves welcomed by industry, which has long encouraged both governments to reinvigorate talks around high-technologies and export controls to remove barriers to greater business partnerships in advanced sectors.