Robust India-US trade ties important: Ami Bera

WASHINGTON: Amid an overall growth in the economic and trade ties between India and the US, a robust trading relationship between the two countries is important, Ami Bera, the only Indian-American lawmaker in the Congress, has said.

"As we look at our future partnership, a robust trading relationship between India and the US is important to both our economies' success and creates jobs here at home," Congressman Ami Bera said yesterday.

The only Indian American Congressman in the current Congress, Bera this week met the Union Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, along with other lawmakers.

"In my home state of California, exports to India are worth more than USD 3.7 billion annually. We must facilitate, not complicate our expanding economic relationship. US policymakers should also foster the growth of investments that Indian-based companies are making on American soil," he said.

Bera will be travelling to India later this summer to help promote the growing trade relationship between the US and India, especially as it relates to businesses in his Sacramento County, California district.

The overall US-India economic and trade relationship is growing steadily, with a nearly five-fold increase in bilateral trade between the countries since 2000, Bera said in a statement.

Currently complicating the growing relationship, though, are concerns from some in the US about what they see as India's disregard for intellectual property protection, enforced local content rules, and investment barriers against American companies trying to do business in India, and conversely, from India-based firms about certain provisions of the US Senate's proposed immigration bill, limiting the free movement of technical professionals, he said.

Bera argued for finding a middle ground to resolve these issues so that the two countries can continue expanding their trading relations as their economies become increasingly linked.