India will engage with US, follow WTO rules: Suresh Prabhu

NEW DELHI: India is working with the US to resolve trade issues and is also following WTO rules to protect interests in wake of Washington’s decision to review India’s eligibility for certain duty benefits.

“I can assure you — the only guiding principle for engagement with the US is to protect India's commercial interest in its entirety,” commerce and industry minister Suresh Prabhu said on Tuesday.

He said India has a special relation with the US, which is multi-faceted, multi-dimensional and strategic, and that Washington is an important trading partner. “In a situation like this, the US has taken certain unilateral actions. So we will follow rules of the World Trade Organization) and we will talk to them," Prabhu said. “We are completely in control of the situation.”


Assistant US Trade Representative Mark Linscott visited India last week. Prabhu said "we are in touch with the US at all levels". He said that over four million Indians are living in the US and it is one of the major markets for goods and services exports.On the issue of the US imposing high duties on steel and aluminium, he said India's exports of these two commodities to America are not significant.