New Delhi, April 2 Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday that India is seeking preferential market access for its products in the US and asserted that the country's relations with America are "very robust" with a deep strategic partnership across technology, defence, trade, and investment.
He said that India's trade agreement with the US is "the best" compared to its competitor countries.
"Our relations are very robust. We have a deep strategic partnership on several aspects, including technology, defence, trade, and investment, and our approach is that India should get preferential market access," Goyal told reporters here.
He said that the country is in a "very favorable position" to promote trade with the US.
"As the world's fastest-growing economy, India holds huge promise for investors who will continue to look at the India opportunity in greater numbers and with greater value in the future," he added.
On March 27, the minister held a meeting with the US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Yaounde, Cameroon, and discussed the next steps in the India-US bilateral trade agreement (BTA) negotiations.
The two met on the sidelines of the 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14) of the World Trade Organization.
In February, the two countries announced that they had finalized a framework for the first phase of the bilateral trade agreement. It has not yet been signed.
India and the US announced a trade deal on February 2. A joint statement for the same was released on February 7.
According to the framework, the US had agreed to reduce tariffs on India to 18 per cent.
However, the tariff architecture in the US has changed following its Supreme Court ruling against President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs. After that, the US President imposed 10 per cent tariffs on all countries for 150 days from February 24.
In view of these changes, a meeting of the chief negotiators of India and the US has been postponed. They were scheduled to meet in February to finalize the legal text of the agreement.
An official has earlier stated that the interim trade agreement between India and the US will be signed once the new global tariff architecture of America is in place.
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