Indo-US Trade Policy Forum meet on Oct 28-29

Ways to promote investments, intellectual property rights, increasing cooperation in services sector also to be discussed

The Indo-US trade Policy Forum will start its two-day meeting on October 28 in America where India is expected to press for greater market access to agri-products and removal of non-tariff barriers.

Trade Policy Forum is the principle trade dialogue body between India and the US.

The other issues which are expected to figure in the meeting include ways to promote investments, intellectual property rights (IPR), increasing cooperation in services sector and about the forthcoming meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Nairobi in December, an official said.

The meeting will be held between Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and US Trade Representative Michael Froman.

The current meet will be the ninth round of TPF. The last round was concluded here in November last year.

The meeting assumes on the back of recently concluded first India-US Strategic and Commercial Dialogue last month in Washington.

Both sides have decided to further deepen their economic cooperation and increase bilateral trade five-fold to $500 billion. The current two-way trade stood at around $100 billion.

India had issues with market access for agri-products such as rice, mangoes, pomegranates and table grapes. Indian agri exporters are facing problems in shipping these commodities due to some non-trade barriers in the US.

During the last TPF meeting, both countries had agreed to establish a new technical dialogue to promote cooperation on plant and animal health and food safety issues in order to facilitate trade of agricultural goods.

Issues related to the intellectual property rights are important as US firms have alleged the Indian laws discriminating them particularly in the pharmaceuticals sector.

The TPF has five focus groups: Agriculture, Investment, Innovation and Creativity (intellectual property rights), Services, and Tariff and Non-Tariff Barriers.

India has received $14.37 billion in FDI from the US companies between April 2000 and June 2015.