India, US to focus on trade policy, commercial ties.

Indo-US trade talks are all set to kick off on July 31. India's World Trade Organisation (WTO) stand on trade facilitation is likely to come up during discussions. There are a host of issues that will be on the table when foreign minister Sushma Swaraj and US secretary of state John Kerry sit down to talk.

There are two sets of meetings that are scheduled. First, the strategic dialogue between Sushma Swaraj and her counterpart John Kerry and a second set of dialogues would focus on commercial cooperation that is between Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her US counterpart Penny Pritzker.

In the strategic dialogue, Indian officials believe that United States will raise the issue of India taking stand against the Trade Facilitation Agreement in the WTO as it is of immense importance to United States and hence officials on Indian side expect the delegation with John Kerry to raise this issue when they have a meeting with Swaraj.

The other issue likely to come up during the Kerry-Swaraj meeting is regarding pharma pricing as several US companies have been impacted by the order of the Indian drug price regulator recently. The IPR related issues, especially the Special 301 report, is also likely to find a place in the high-level talks.

Sitharaman-Pritzker talks are likely to be based on identifying areas for cooperation. US wish to exchange notes with India on special economic zones. US also wants to have a joint effort as far as high level manufacturing in the health sector, energy sector as well as in the information and communications technology sector is concerned.

Source : moneycontrol.com