India Business
In the India business news that has been published through the early months of 2010 in the United States and India, a forthcoming visit planned by President Obama to discuss issues of trade and commerce has occupied a large degree of attention. In an announcement made toward the end of March 2010, India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma reassured observers of India business news that preparatory meetings and measures were being taken to ensure that the President’s visit would have the hoped-for healthy effect on relations between the United States and India. Political attention is often brought in the United States of the possibly damaging effects to the American economy of the trend for services in industries such as tech support to be shifted over to India, while Indians for their part are highly conscious of the value to be derived in continuing economic relations with the U.S. With the financial and political stakes of issues connected with India business news existing at such high levels, it is likely that the results of President Obama’s visit will be closely monitored throughout the medias and public of both countries.
The most recent development in India business news to impact on the United States, which provided the impetus for Sharma’s announcement, concerns the signing of a new set of agreements controlling the rate of flows of rate and investments between the United States and India. According to the Minister’s statement, these agreements followed up on proposals previously made at the Indo-US Trade Policy Forum. In India business news, they do not carry quite the same degree of weight in the media as President Obama’s forthcoming visit, but these measures have been adopted in anticipation of that meeting. Sharma addressed more controversial issues in the relations between the two countries in the form of disputes over the issuance of visas for professionals from India, the abolition of trade restrictions against India, and the reform of legislation upheld by the United States restricting exports from India.
Such issues in the past has been the source of some contention in India business news, and the new agreements between the countries are hoped to help resolve these disputes. In order to return the favor of President Obama’s planned trip to India and reinforce the message of economic cooperation between the two countries, Sharma made these statements and agreements during a visit to Washington to meet with lawmakers. In addition to discussing the specific questions of economic policy raised by relations between the United States and India, Sharma also used his discussions with Washington officials to raise the more generally relevant issue of the proposed creation of what he termed a “fair and equitable multilateral trade regime.” In this way, the government of India helps to use its cooperation with the United States on trade issues to also help create measures defending against the effects of the recent economic downturn. With India also a player in Middle Eastern politics, good economic relations between the two countries are doubly important.