India Seeks Parity In BTA Talks With US

New Delhi: India is likely to ask the US to ease export controls and grant it access to critical technologies on par with key American allies like Australia, the UK, and Japan under the proposed bilateral trade agreement (BTA), sources said.

They added that India may seek these easing for sectors like telecom equipment, biotechnology, AI (artificial intelligence), pharmaceuticals, quantum computing and semiconductors. The country is also seeking duty concessions for labour-intensive sectors like textiles, gems and jewellery, leather goods, garments, plastics, chemicals, shrimp, oil seeds, chemicals, grapes and bananas in the proposed pact with America.

On the other hand, the US wants duty concessions in sectors like certain industrial goods, automobiles (electric vehicles particularly), wines, petrochemical products, dairy, agriculture items such as apples, and tree nuts, they said. As part of the proposed BTA, one of the sources said, India may request the US to place it on par with other key US allies including Australia, UK and Japan regarding access to technology through easing of export controls particularly in key areas like telecom equipment, biotechnology, and AI.

Easy access to cutting-edge technologies in these sectors would help boost India’s innovation capabilities.