Indo-US two-way trade touches $ 31.92bln

New Delhi, Mar 18 (UNI) The bilateral trade between the United States and India for the calendar year January-December 2006, touched 31.92 billion dollars, registering an increase of 19.12 per cent over the previous year.

This has tipped the balance of trade in favour of India by 11.74 billion dollars, according to the data compiled by the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC).

IACC points out the US exports to India increased by 26.31 per cent from 7.99 billion dollars to 10.09 billion dollars and the 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 US 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. IACC has been acting as a facilitating body for promotion of two-way trade by bringing importers and exporters of both countries together.

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

Given the fact that the US is India's largest trade and investment partner, IACC said that a free trade arrangement should be explored between the two countries, which should 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,'' says 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