The first senior US government official to visit India after a damaging diplomatic row said Thursday the two countries should focus on "talk and trade" as they look to get their partnership back on track. In December, Indian consulate official Devyani Khobragade was arrested and strip-searched in New York on suspicion of visa fraud, enraging Indian authorities who claimed that she had diplomatic immunity.
The incident fuelled a bitter row between the world's two largest democracies, which have overcome Cold War suspicions to embrace each other as trading partners and strategic allies in recent years. Nisha Desai Biswal, US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, acknowledged problems in a speech in the Indian capital but urged both sides to overcome their differences. "We're addressing these concerns head-on as good partners do," she said, adding: "The solution is to talk and trade." The lack of transparency in Indian tax laws, red tape, and weak protection of intellectual property rights were discouraging investments in India, Biswal said as she listed a series of US concerns.
She also highlighted that India has ranked a dismal 134 out of 189 countries in world rankings for hospitable places to "invest and start a new business". Annual trade between India and the US currently stands at $100 billion but the two sides have pledged to increase this figure five-fold over the next decade. While highlighting India's strategic importance, Biswal said the US was eager for better relations between the South Asia giant and its neighbours to the west - Pakistan and Afghanistan - and central and south-eastern Asia.
"In the coming years, the most important step India can take to promote greater connectivity is to normalise trade with Pakistan," she said. Meanwhile, a leading Indian business body hit out at growing pressure from within the US for Washington to sanction India over alleged drug patent and other intellectual property rights abuses.
The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) said the country adhered fully to international treaty obligations to safeguard intellectual property rights. The US Chamber of Commerce last month urged the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to label India a "Priority Foreign Country", a classification given to those seen as the worst at safeguarding intellectual property rights.
The chamber's move was designed to "create pressure on India" to increase intellectual property protection beyond the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) agreement administered by the World Trade Organisation, the FICCI said. The US campaign "aims to protect private corporate interests over national interests", added the Indian trade body. India's laws are tougher on drug patent-holders than those in many other countries as it seeks to make medicines more affordable for its vast poor population. But foreign drugmakers have accused India of failing to respect intellectual property rights so that it can promote its own generics industry - a charge New Delhi strongly denies.
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