Indo-US trade grows at $ 31.92bn for 2006

New Delhi, Mar 15 (UNI) The two-way trade between the US and India, touched 31.92 billion dollars in the calendar year 2006, up by 19.12 per cent over the previous year, with the balance of trade in favour of the country by 11.74 billion dollars.

According to the data compiled by the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC), US exports to India increased by 26.31 per cent from 7.99 billion dollars to 10.09 billion dollars and US imports from India crossed 21.82 billion dollars from 18.80 billion dollars, an increase of 16.07 per cent for the same period over previous year.

The increase in US exports to India is significant on account of the concern expressed by the former that its imports to India have plateaued.

For bilateral trade to grow, it is important that both imports and exports between the two countries should grow in a balanced manner, the chamber said in a statement.

In order to promote regional trading, India has embarked upon signing of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs), Preferential Tariff Areas (PTAs) with many countries and Regions.

These include Indo-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, India-Korea, Indo-Japan and others which are at various stages of negotiations.

The Indian government and administrations of the respective countries and regions are engaged in consultations to identify goods that will attract zero duty, and those which will be put into the sensitive and negative lists.

Given the fact that US is India's largest trade and investment partner, IACC pointed out that a free trade arrangement should be explored between the two countries, which would promote bilateral trade and investment to help businesses of both the countries.

''Sometime back a proposal was mooted to explore the feasibility of a free trade agreement between India and the US in the IT segment. It is necessary that beneficial effect of such agreements to both the countries should be thoroughly explored and implemented over a time frame,'' said IACC.

It is necessary to work on these ideas well in advance since there are many imponderables like duty structure, tariff protection etc that have to be worked out, which are quite time consuming.

It is also necessary to bear in mind that the Indo-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement will finally be operative in 2018, although the negotiations on the various aspects of the Agreement has already started.

UNI