India, US officials discuss trade, IPR ahead of TPF meet

Senior officials of India and the US today deliberated upon various trade and investment related issues such as visa, market access and IPR ahead of the ministerial level Trade Policy Forum (TPF) meeting tomorrow.
A bilateral meeting was held between Commerce Secretary Rajeev Kher and Deputy United States Trade Representative Robert Holleyman. Besides the sub-group met on Trade in Agriculture, Goods and Services related issues.
Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Amitabh Kant and Holleyman co-chaired the sub-group meeting on investment in manufacturing.
"During the day long meetings, both the sides discusses various issues related to visa, market access, totalisation agreement and Intellectual Property Rights matter," an official said.

Earlier in the day, Kher said that both the sides have frank exchange of views and agreed to continue work towards achieving the common goal.
Holleyman said: ""We had an excellent engagement. It was a good opportunity to hold discussions...To prepare some advance work for TPF tomorrow. It was a productive discussion and we agreed for a follow up engagement".

As part of the TPF meeting, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will deliberate on these matters with US Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman, the leader of the American delegation, tomorrow.
After the meeting a joint statement will be issued.

TPF, which has not met since 2010, is the premier bilateral forum for discussion and resolution of trade and investment issues between the two countries.
On IPR, India and the US officials deliberated upon issues related to copyright violations, compulsory licence and traditional knowledge, a source said.
"This is just a beginning. Both the sides will have more meetings. They have also discussed the work programme which will go till next year," the source added.
The current bilateral trade between the two countries stood at around USD 100 billion.
India has received USD 12.32 billion in FDI from the US companies between April 2000 and August 2014.

India had earlier flagged matters related with market access for agri products such as rice, mangoes, pomegranates and table grapes.