1st meeting of India-US Strategic Trade Dialogue focuses on development, trade of technologies

The first meeting of the India-US Strategic Trade Dialogue (IUSSTD) was held in Washington on Tuesday with a focus on ways in which both governments can facilitate the development and trade of technologies in critical domains, informed Indian Embassy in Washington.

The Indian delegation was led by Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra, while the US delegation was co-led by Alan Estevez, Under Secretary for Industry and Security in the US Department of Commerce and Ambassador Victoria Nuland, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in the US Department of State. Both sides reviewed the relevant bilateral export control regulations with the objective of building and diversifying resilient supply chains for these strategic technologies.

They reviewed ongoing cooperation in multilateral export control regimes and agreed to share best practices.

India and US also agreed to enhance awareness among the industry, academia and other stakeholders about the export control regimes through workshops and other activities, as per the official statement.
The two sides also acknowledged that the dialogue would be instrumental to enabling co-production, co-development and enhanced industrial collaborations in critical technologies. They agreed to set up a regular monitoring group which will review progress in deepening cooperation in the bilateral high-tech trade and technology partnership. The co-chairs agreed to continue the dialogue with the objective of strengthening the India-US Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership.

After the inaugural meet concluded, Under Secretary Victoria Nuland tweeted, “Thank you Indian Foreign Secretary Kwatra and delegation for a very productive first US-India Strategic Trade Dialogue. Together we will grow our economies and create jobs through increased bilateral trade and better high-tech collaboration.”

Indian Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu hosted met and hosted other Quad members counterparts.

Sandhu tweeted, “A bipartisan handshake of US Congress with Quad! Delighted to host Quad Ambassadors Kevin Rudd AC, Amb Tomita, Japan Embassy DC and The White House leadership and members from House Foreign Affairs Committee Dems and House Foreign Affairs Committee Majority Michael McCaul, Rep Gregory Meeks, Young Kim, Ami Bera, Rep Mike Waltz and French Hill.”

IUSSTD is a key mechanism to take forward the strategic technology and trade collaborations envisaged under the India-US initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET), the release added.