IPR remains one of top bilateral trade issue with India: US

The Intellectual Property Rights remains to be one of the top bilateral trade issues between India and the US even as India became the ninth single country trading partner for the US in 2016, an official US report said today.
India remained on the priority watch list in 2016 due to a lack of measurable improvement to its IPR regime, said the annual report 'The Year in Trade 2016', released by the US International Trade Commission (USITC).
"IPR protection remained one of the top bilateral trade issues between the two countries," said the annual report.
India remained on the priority watch list in 2016 due to a lack of measurable improvement to its IPR regime, it noted.

According to the annual USITC report, India's economic growth also slowed, decreasing from 7.9 per cent in 2015 to 6.8 per cent in 2016.
Although, it still had one of the highest growth rates in the world in 2016, India has notably fewer linkages to the global economy than China does.

India's services sector accounts for the majority of its growth, and it has a relatively small manufacturing sector and a per capita income of USD 6,590 in 2016.
"As a result, India's economy does not spur strong demand for imports," USITC said.
The report notes that in 2016, India became the US' 9th- largest single-country trading partner (based on two-way merchandise trade), rising from 10th-largest in 2015.

US two-way merchandise trade with India increased 2.2 per cent to USD 67.7 billion in 2016.
In addition, India's share of total US merchandise trade with the world rose to 1.9 per cent, up from 1.8 per cent in 2015.
USITC said although US exports to India went up slightly in 2016, the US merchandise trade deficit with India rose 4.2 per cent to USD 24.3 billion in 2016 as imports grew even more than exports.
Although India was again the United States' seventh- single largest country services trading partner, based on two-way trade, it continued to be the only top trading partner with which the US has a services trade deficit, the report said.

However, this trade deficit has slowly decreased since 2014, it said.
In 2016, US exports again rose slightly more than US imports of services, which resulted in a 1.6 per cent decline in the US services trade deficit to USD 6.8 billion.
Total US services trade with India grew 10.3 per cent to USD 46.7 billion in 2016, it said.
USITC said in 2016, there were several active WTO dispute settlement proceedings involving the United States and India.
In March, India requested consultations with the US about measures concerning non-immigrant temporary work visas.
In July, the US requested arbitration regarding a dispute with India concerning the importation of certain agricultural products on the basis that India failed to bring its measures into compliance within the agreed reasonable period of time, it said.

In September, India requested consultations with the US regarding alleged domestic-content requirements in the renewable energy sector provided by several US states.
Finally, in October 2016, the Dispute Settlement Body adopted the Appellate Body report and the panel report, as modified by the Appellate Body report, regarding India's purchase power agreements with solar firms and domestic- content requirements.
Noting that in 2016, the US and India continued dialogue on improving bilateral trade and investment, including IPR protection, the report said that in June, then US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met in Washington, DC, for their third major bilateral summit.