Bloomberg: India, US to urgently address bilateral biz concerns

Bloomberg: India, US to urgently address bilateral biz concerns

October 13, 2013

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew and Indian Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram discussed ways to improve the investment environment in both countries during a bilateral meeting today.

“We discussed the importance of investment for driving economic growth and job creation in our economies and ways to improve our enabling environments to mobilize investment, especially for the financing of infrastructure,” Lew and Chidambaram said in a joint statement released by the U.S. Treasury Department.

U.S. and Indian officials also discussed “recent economic and financial developments in our two economies, and in the world at large, including U.S. fiscal policy,” according to the statement, which said Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and India’s central bank chief Raghuram Rajan also participated in the meeting.

U.S.-India bilateral trade in goods and services grew to $92.5 billion in 2012, from $59.9 billion in 2009, according to the joint statement. Indian foreign direct investment in the U.S. increased to almost $5.2 billion in 2012, from $227 million in 2002, the statement said.

Some areas of tension between the countries include U.S. complaints about trade barriers in India. Indian businesses that rely on the U.S. for a large part of their revenues are concerned about proposed changes to immigration laws that would restrict the ability of Indian companies to bring workers from India into the U.S.

Read More: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-13/lew-and-india-s-chidambaram-discuss-improving-investment-climate.html