For Immediate Release: March 2, 2006
FACT SHEET
U.S.-India Commercial Dialogue
President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
agreed to revitalize the bilateral multiagency Economic Dialogue when
they met in Washington last July. To fulfill that commitment, the International
Trade Administration (ITA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce and India's
Ministry of Commerce and Industry have taken steps to revitalize our
part of the Economic Dialogue - the Commercial Dialogue. Both sides
are now fully committed to regular contact at all levels to discuss
nuts-and-bolts issues that affect doing business in each other's markets.
Under the ITA-led Commercial Dialogue, we have been holding
a number of substantive public-private sessions on standards, in which
we discussed general principles on how standards are established, administered
and enforced by both countries. Standards barriers are consistently
cited by business as one of the largest impediments to expanding market
presence in India. Both sides now have a better understanding of these
principles. Currently we are working with the Indian Government to expand
our discussions to sector-specific issues such as environmental technologies,
electrical products, and medical devices.
In view of this successful series of exchanges on standards,
ITA Under Secretary Franklin L. Lavin and India's Secretary of Commerce
S.N. Menon have agreed that the Commercial Dialogue should be elevated,
enhanced, and expanded and that it would demonstrate greater engagement
by the two private sectors. The expanded agenda for the Commercial Dialogue
will cover intellectual property rights enforcement, antidumping and
countervailing duty procedures, and commercial opportunities for small
and medium-sized enterprises.