New Delhi:
An Indian official team is likely to visit Washington next week, which is to take out differences on some issues before starting the negotiations formally for the proposed Indo-US Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA), an official said.
The journey, which comes within the weeks of a high -level American team traveling to India, indicates that the talks are gaining momentum for BTA.
Rajesh Agarwal, the chief negotiator of India, Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce, is expected to lead the team for the first person’s interaction between the two countries.
The journey follows the senior official level conversation held between the two countries last month. Brendon Lynch was in India from 25 to 29 March to discuss important trade with Indian officials, assistant American trade representatives for South and Central Asia.
“The Indian team may visit Washington by the middle of next week. It is not a formal first round of negotiations between the two countries. They would like to contest on some issues before starting a formal talks for BTA,” the official said.
Both sides are willing to use the 90-day tariff stagnation, on 9 April to pursue talks by US President Donald Trump.
Earlier, an official source stated that an interim trade agreement between India and the US could be finalized in the 90-day tariff stagnation declared by the Trump administration if it is a victory for both sides.
The two countries have already finally finalized finally final conversations and signed a reference to start negotiations for the treaty. Such agreements define the purpose, scope and outline of the talks for such agreements. They also underline specific areas to be covered.
On 15 April, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said that India would try to close the conversation as soon as possible with the US.
He also said that India has decided to follow the trade liberalization path with the US through this agreement.
India and the United States are engaged in talking about a bilateral trade agreement from March. The two sides have targeted to end the first phase of the treaty by this year’s collapse (September-October), which is currently more than $ 500 billion from USD from USD from USD to 2030.
Virtual talks are going on from this week.
In a trade treaty, two countries either reduce or eliminate customs duty on the maximum number of trading goods between them. They also reduce criteria to promote trade in services and promote investment.
While the US is looking at duty concessions in areas such as some industrial goods, automobiles (especially electric vehicles), wine, petrochemical products, dairy and agricultural commodities such as apples, tree nuts and alfalfa ha; In India, duties may be deducted for labor-entrants such as appeals, textiles, gems and jewelery, leather, plastic, chemicals, oil seeds, shrimp, and horticulture products.
From 2021–22 to 2024-25, America was India’s largest trading partner.
The US accounts for about 18 percent of India’s total goods exports, 6.22 percent in imports and 10.73 percent in bilateral trade.
Along with the US, in India in 2024–25 goods were a trade surplus of USD 41.18 billion (difference between imports and exports). It was 35.32 billion in 2023-24, US $ 27.7 billion in 2022-23, USD 32.85 billion in 2021-22 and USD 22.73 billion in 2020–21. The US has expressed concern over the widespread trade deficit.
To address the difference and promote manufacturing, the Trump administration announced a sweeping tariff on 2 April, including 26 percent in India. It was later suspended by 9 July.
In 2024, India’s main exports to the US were included to include drug formulation and biological (USD 8.1 billion), telecom instruments (USD 6.5 billion), precious and semi-precious stones (USD 5.3 billion), petroleum products (USD 4.1 billion), USD 3.2 billion (usD 3.2 billion). Iron and Steel (USD 2.7 billion).
Import includes crude oil (USD 4.5 billion), petroleum products (USD 3.6 billion), coal, coke (USD 3.4 billion), cut and polished diamonds (USD 2.6 billion), electric machinery (USD 1.4 billion), aircraft, spacecraft and parts (USD 1.3 billion), and gold (USD 1.3 billion).
(This story is not edited by NDTV employees and auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)