Higher Indian tariffs unattractive to US investors: Hall

US Consul General in Kolkata, Craig Hall today said that high tariffs in India made the country unattractive for American investors.

He said there are challenges in the economic relations between the two countries but the opportunities outweigh them.

"Average tariff rate in India is high as 13.4 per cent, while for US it was 3.4 per cent", Hall said at an interaction organised by MCCI here.

Another area of concern for the US investors is the weak protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), Hall said adding this was mostly in the areas of pharmaceutical products and agriculture related technology.

The consul general said there had been instances of violation of IPR in the case of US pharma devices which had been brought to India at a pre-determined price, but was told to lower it after coming to India.

"These are surely cases of violation of IPR", Hall said.

Among the fields which are closed to US investors are agri-investments, legal and educational services, he said.

The big opportunities were there in the area of defence cooperation, he said.

On H1B visa, Hall said that there had been no changes in the programme as such but debate was on H4 visas concerning the working spouses of Indians living there.