Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal will lead a team of senior Indian officials to Washington starting May 16 for discussions with their US counterparts on the proposed bilateral trade agreement (BTA), an official said on Tuesday. Goyal is expected to hold meetings with US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during his visit.
The final policy may be out only after formation of the new government, according to sources
Digipin promises to revolutionise location-based services in India with safeguards.
I'...additional concessions, such as opening government procurement, reducing agricultural subsidies, weakening patent protections, and allowing unrestricted data flows -- demands India has resisted for decades.'
Any government support or incentive to help exporters deal with high freight and insurance costs is unlikely.
'What the US appears to be doing is to force India to be "the buyer of last resort", on whom their products can be dumped, 1.4 billion people have to eat something, so why not eat American corn?' 'What is exercising the Trump lot is the fact that most of the farms are in solidly Republican Midwestern states: Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin,' points out Rajeev Srinivasan.
Hectic parleys are underway between officials of India and the US in Washington on the proposed interim trade agreement between the two countries, an official said on Wednesday.
The draft favoured up to 49 per cent foreign equity in inventory model in the case of 100 per cent made in India products sold through Indian management-controlled platforms with resident Indian founders/promoters.
The government has set up an inter-ministerial group to monitor a possible surge in imports from countries like China, Vietnam and Thailand, fearing a surge in inbound shipments following the imposition of high reciprocal tariffs by the US on these countries, sources said. The product categories that may see an upsurge in diversion of imports from the US to India include consumer goods, electronics, chemicals and steel.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that he "helped settle" the tensions between India and Pakistan and that he told the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours that America would do a "lot of trade" with them if they stopped the conflict.
The government is expediting visa-related issues to bring technicians to India from any country, not just China, as and when required, to ensure the smooth implementation of the flagship production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing. "If those under the PLI scheme need to get their equipment installed, we try to expedite the ability to get technicians into India from any country, whichever it may be," Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal told Business Standard in an interview.
Apple will source the majority of the iPhone sold in the US from India in the June quarter while China will produce the vast majority of the devices for other markets amid uncertainty over tax tariffs, a top official said on Friday.
In a dramatic shift in Canada's foreign policy, Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday declared that the long-standing economic and security relationship between Canada and the United States has ended, responding to US President Donald Trump's announcement of new auto tariffs that could severely impact Canada's economy, Politico reported.
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor welcomed the revival of long-stalled India-UK FTA negotiations, posting a selfie with Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and the UK's Secretary of State for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds. Tharoor's post comes amid a row over his recent article praising the Kerala government's investment climate, which drew criticism from some Congress leaders.
US President Donald Trump has announced a 25 per cent plus tariff on India from Aug 1. Trump, describing India as a "friend", said the US has done relatively "little business" with the country because of its high tariffs.
A government official said India and the US are exploring an interim trade deal within 90 days.
Indian and US officials will begin deliberations on the proposed bilateral trade agreement in Washington from Wednesday with an aim to iron out issues and give an impetus to the negotiations.
Retailers claim online firms' predatory pricing strategy disrupting business
Senior officials of India and the US will begin three-day talks on the proposed bilateral trade agreement in New Delhi on Wednesday amid threats of reciprocal tariffs from the Trump-administration, an official said. To formally start the negotiations on the pact, Assistant US Trade Representative for South and Central Asia Brendan Lynch, along with a team of officials, is in New Delhi.
India and the US desire to give preferential market access to each other's businesses and teams of both the countries are working together on the proposed bilateral trade agreement, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has said. In February, US President Donald J Trump and Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi announced plans to negotiate the first tranche or phase of a mutually beneficial, multi-sector Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) by fall (September-October) of 2025.
The "construct of the DPDP Act" cannot be changed at this stage, though there may be some minor tweaks in the language of the Rules and formats in certain legitimate cases.
'The US has agreed to negotiate with us a mutually beneficial bilateral trade agreement, which will go for reduction of tariffs on both sides so that our trade can grow.'
Isaacman's removal comes just days after Elon Musk's official departure from the White House, where the SpaceX CEO was serving in the role of a "special government employee" leading the Department of Government Efficiency.
He had promised his daughter that he would be there, come what may, a kin said. But fate had a different plan.
'The US is strongly placed to expand its crude supplies to India.'
Go-getter, ambitious, dynamic, workaholic are some of the adjectives that officials who worked closely with B V R Subrahmanyam use to describe him.
Exports to eight out of India's top 10 destinations, including the Netherlands, the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK), witnessed positive growth during the first six months of FY25, despite muted global demand amid geopolitical challenges, commerce department data showed.
The Indian government has appointed Finance Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey as the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Pandey, a 1987-batch IAS officer, will replace Madhabi Puri Buch, whose three-year tenure ends on February 28. Pandey's appointment comes at a time when the markets are experiencing bear pressure due to withdrawals by foreign institutional investors (FIIs). Pandey has extensive experience in the finance ministry, having served as the longest-serving secretary in the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) and the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE). He also played a key role in the framing of the 2025-26 Budget and the drafting of the new Income Tax Bill. Pandey's appointment is for an initial period of three years.
The government is at a "fairly advanced stage" of finalising a well-coordinated e-commerce policy and consumer protection rules, which will incorporate provisions of Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh said on Thursday. "E-commerce rules and e-commerce policy will be congruent with each other... That exercise is at a fairly advanced stage," Singh told reporters. The remarks come on a day the number of daily transactions on the platform has gone up 500 times since the beginning of this year with the number of retail merchants added to its roster growing 40-fold.
A team of senior officials from India will again visit Washington this month to hold discussions with their US counterparts on the proposed bilateral trade agreement (BTA), government sources said on Thursday. To give impetus to the talks, India's chief negotiator Rajesh Agrawal, special secretary in the Department of Commerce, and Assistant US Trade Representative for South and Central Asia Brendan Lynch had last month held three-day talks in Washington.
The commerce department has reaffirmed its plans to launch the 'Trade Connect' e-platform to help exporters connect with stakeholders of international trade, as a part of the new government's 100-day action plan, a senior government official said.
Many industry executives have said the draft e-commerce policy is being perceived as nationalistic but not overly protectionist and it is providing preference to Indian players against foreign companies. This might have an impact on investment by large players such as Walmart and Amazon in the country, said the executives. They said e-commerce was a very small portion of the retail industry and at a nascent stage and did not require heavy hammer regulations. Though the policy talks about being equally applicable to foreign and domestic players, it mentions that foreign direct investment (FDI) takes precedence over the e-commerce policy in any area of overlap.
An Indian official team is likely to visit Washington next week to iron out differences on certain issues before formally launching negotiations for the proposed India-US bilateral trade agreement (BTA), an official said. The visit, which comes within weeks of a high-level US team visiting India, indicates that the talks for the BTA are gaining momentum.
The move by the US President came following a retaliatory move by China, where it increased its tariff on US goods from 34 per cent to 84 per cent starting April 10.
Seasoned bureaucrat and a stickler for rules Finance Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey will be at the helm of capital market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), for three years. The 1987-batch Odisha-cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, Pandey, would replace Madhabi Puri Buch, whose three-year term ends on Friday.
Smartphones, for the first time, emerged as India's largest individual export commodity by value over 10 months of any financial year, during the April-January period of FY25, based on harmonised system (HS) codes. During the period under review, smartphone exports from India reached $18.31 billion, according to data from the Department of Commerce, surpassing automotive diesel fuel exports, which stood at $16.04 billion.
Exports of 19 major commodities, including petroleum products, coal and marine items, saw growth in terms of volume during April 2023-February 2024, even as they witnessed contraction in value terms during the same period. Government officials said the rise in export volume despite a decline in value implies that these commodities show a stronger market demand.
Starlink's application for offering satcom services in India had been held up for the company's inability to comply with mandatory ownership disclosure norms.
Companies have been approached to set up incubation centres that will offer financial and non-financial support to manufacturing startups at various levels.
India and the US will sit together in the next couple of weeks to decide on the nature of the proposed trade agreement and finalise its broad contours, a senior official said on Monday. During the recent visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington, India and the US announced to more than double the two-way commerce to $500 billion by 2030 and negotiate the first tranche of a mutually beneficial, multi-sector bilateral trade agreement (BTA) by fall of 2025.
