United States of America March 2012
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India - United States of America Relations Overview India-US relations have become increasingly broad based covering cooperation in areas such as trade and economic, defence and security, education, science and technology, high-technology, civil nuclear energy, space technology and applications, clean energy, environment and health. People to people interaction provide further vitality and strength to bilateral relationship. There have been regular contacts at political and official levels and wide-ranging dialogue architecture on bilateral, regional and global issues has been put in place. The visit of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to Washington from 22-26 November, 2009 as the first State Guest of President Barack Obama reaffirmed the global strategic partnership between India and the United States. President Obama’s visit to India from 6-9 November 2010, imparted further momentum to bilateral cooperation and helped establish a long-term framework for India-US global strategic partnership. President Obama characterized India-US relationship as one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century. Major areas of cooperation A "Strategic Dialogue" was established in July 2009 during the visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to India with the objective of strengthening bilateral cooperation across diverse sectors. The first round of the Strategic Dialogue was held in Washington DC in June 2010, followed by the second round in New Delhi in July 2011. The Minister of External Affairs led the Indian delegation for the Dialogue; US Secretary of State led the Dialogue from the US side. The third meeting of the Strategic Dialogue will be held in Washington in June 2012. Trade and Economic Relations Trade and economic partnership between the US and India has been a key component of the bilateral relationship. A new US Financial and Economic Partnership to strengthen bilateral engagement on macroeconomic, financial, and investment-related issues was launched in New Delhi in April 2010 by the Finance Minister Mr.Pranab Mukherjee and US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. The Second Meeting of India- US Financial and Economic Partnership was held in Washington D.C in June 2011 . The India-US Trade Policy Forum (TPF) was established in July 2005 to discuss issues related to trade. The last and seventh meeting of the TPF took place in Washington DC from September 21- 22, 2010. An Agreement on Framework for Cooperation on Trade and Investment was signed during the visit of Minister for Commerce & Industry, Mr. Anand Sharma to USA in March 2010. As part of the Economic Dialogue, a separate Commercial Dialogue has been set up to cover (a) Trade Defence Measures (b) Small and Medium Enterprises and (c) capacity building on Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs). For greater involvement of private sector in discussion on issues involving trade and investment the bilateral India-US CEO’s Forum was reconstituted in 2009. The fourth round of the reconstituted CEOs’ Forum to facilitate a structured dialogue between the industry and the government was held on 22 September 2011 at Washington DC. Separately a Private Sector Advisory Group (PSAG) has also been created consisting of prominent Indian and international trade experts to provide strategic recommendations and insights to the US-India Trade Policy Forum. The India-US aviation cooperation program (ACP) was established in 2007 to further cooperation as a public-private partnership between the Indian Ministry of Civil Aviation and US Federal Aviation Administration, the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), other US Government agencies and US aviation companies. Bilateral trade has diversified and encompasses a wide range of products, services and technology. An expanding & vibrant architecture of dialogue on commercial, economic and technology related issues has given a fillip to this cooperation. India-US total merchandise trade was US $57.80 billion in 2011. The two way services trade was US $42.50 billion in 2009. The two governments have resumed technical-level negotiations on a bilateral investment treaty. A totalization agreement has also been under discussion for some time. Bilateral Investments The U.S. is the fourth largest source of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) into India. The Cumulative FDI Equity Inflows from the U.S. during the period April 2000 to January 2012 amounted to about $10.36 billion, constituting 6% of the total FDI into India. During the financial year 2011-2012 (April 2011 to January 2012) the FDI inflows into India from the U.S. were $0.91 billion, contributing 3.48% of the total FDI. In recent years, growing Indian investments into the US, estimated by independent studies to be around US$ 26.5 billion between 2004-2009, has been a novel feature of bilateral ties. Clean Energy and Climate Change Initiative An Agreement for Cooperation on Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center (JCERDC) was signed between India and US in November 2010. The Center aims to help development of critical technologies for renewable energy, energy efficiency, clean coal, including carbon capture and storage, and other areas of clean energy. It has been announced that the two Governments would provide US$ 5 million each annually for next five years towards their share of research cost under the Agreement while an equivalent cost will be borne by the Consortia which will carry out the research. The first joint Funding Opportunity Announcement for the JCERDC was made in May 2011 seeking research projects on consortia mode under PPP model of funding in the initial priority areas of solar energy; second generation biofuels; and energy efficiency of buildings. In response to the first call for proposals, 21 joint proposals from different consortia have been received. Maiden awards are expected to be announced by end of March 2012. Counter-terrorism Cooperation Cooperation in counter terrorism has seen considerable progress over the last few years. A new India-US Counter-Terrorism Cooperation Initiative was signed in 2010 to expand collaboration on counter-terrorism, information sharing and capacity building. Separately functional level cooperation on counter-terrorism is being pursued through a Joint Working Group (JWG) on Counter Terrorism that was established in January 2000. The 12th meeting of the JWG was held in New Delhi in March 2011. A new Homeland Security Dialogue was also announced during President Obama’s visit to India in November 2010 to further deepen operational cooperation, counter-terrorism technology transfers and capacity building. The US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano visited India in May 2011 to hold the first round of this dialogue with Home Minister Mr. P. Chidambaram. The next meeting of this Dialogue will be held in the US in 2012. Defence Cooperation The ‘New Framework for India-US Defence Relationship’ was signed between the two sides on June 28, 2005. Both sides have agreed to pursue mutually beneficial defence cooperation through the existing security dialogue, service level exchanges, defence exercises and defence trade and technology transfer and collaboration. India’s defence orders from U.S. companies have reached a cumulative value of over USD 8.0 billion in the last decade. Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited India in January 2009. Raksha Mantri Shri A.K. Antony visited Washington in September 2010. Apart from the Ministerial level exchange, there are exchanges between each of the Services, with regular joint exercises. Civil Nuclear Initiative The bilateral civil nuclear cooperation agreement was finalized in July 2007 and signed in October 2008 by EAM and then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. During the visit of President Obama to India in November 2010, the two Governments announced completion of all steps to begin implementation of the Civil Nuclear Agreement. Indian and US companies are now working towards early commencement of commercial cooperation in this area. This initiative has been strengthened by the regular meeting of the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Working Group (CNWG). The 4th joint CNWG Meeting was held at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in July 2011. Department of Atomic Energy and US Department of Energy have last year signed an Implementing Agreement on ‘Discovery Science’ that provides the framework for cooperation in accelerator and particle detector research and development with Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and Brookhaven National Laboratory. Under the agreement, a project on "US and Indian Institutions Collaboration on Neutrino Physics, Related Experiments and Detector Development" is getting implemented by Delhi University and Fermilab. Space Cooperation The two sides have had long history of cooperation in Civil Space arena. A bilateral Joint Working Group on Civil Space Cooperation has been established as a forum for discussions on joint activities in space. The Group had its 3rd meet at Bangalore from 13-14 July 2011. Both the sides have agreed to continue and expand their joint activities in the area of civil space cooperation. Major areas include: (i) exchange of scientists; (ii) OCM2, INSAT3D collaboration; (iii) future mission definition workshops; (iv) nanosatellites; (v) carbon /ecosystem monitoring and modelling; (vi) feasibility of collaboration in radio occultation: (vii) CSLA: (viii) international space station; (ix) global navigation satellite systems; (x) formation flying; (xi)