India, US bilateral treaty is doable: US envoy

Verma reiterated that the US is looking at some of the potential sectors such as infrastructure and transportation

US ambassador to India, Richard Verma, on Monday said India and the US should expedite talks on a long-pending bilateral investment treaty (BIT), even as trade in goods and services between both countries stood at $103 billion in 2014.

“We are working hard to assess the prospects of moving forward with a high-standard BIT. Our teams met at the end of March to discuss India’s draft model text. A high-standard BIT would further enhance investor confidence.  We know it is possible and doable,” Verma said, while addressing the annual general meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce India here on Tuesday. Following a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama here in January, both sides vowed to resume talks on the BIT soon. However, no talks have been held so far. Talks on the BIT have been underway since 2008.

Verma said now, both sides were planning to expand the India-US strategic dialogue to include specific “commercial focus”, with the establishment of a newly reconstituted “strategic and commercial dialogue”, which would include the minister of commerce and industry from India and the US commerce secretary.

“We expect the inaugural meeting of the expanded dialogue to take place in Washington this summer and are focused on reconstituting the US side of the CEO forum in support of the dialogue,” he said. Both sides should work towards achieving bilateral trade worth $500 billion, which would enhance economic ties between both sides by “25 times” compared to 15 years ago, he added.

“Fifteen years ago, our bilateral trade in goods and services stood at $19 billion. Last year, it finally crossed that elusive $100-billion threshold and now, it stands at $103 billion. We are ready to work with our Indian counterparts to increase that to $500 billion,” he said. On the government’s smart cities project, Verma said the US was involved in developing Visakhapatnam, Ajmer and Allahabad.

He, however, added, “We do not have clarity on financing for many projects…To be successful, Indian state and central governments and Indian industry will need to take the lead in providing finance for smart cities, but they are still deciding how much funding they will allocate. Land acquisition, foreign direct investment and other questions remain unresolved. The expectation of a large amount of private sector finance, either domestic or foreign, will be a challenge.”

The primary challenge was US and Indian companies forming a joint venture and developing long-term ambitious plans for such cities, he said.