Updates

AFTI Official Quote on New Levy from India

India recently imposed a new levy on foreign billings, or transactions where companies take payment abroad for digital services provided in India. Roger Murry of the Alliance for Fair Trade with India (AFTI) was quoted in Reuters on the new tax. The new levy came out of nowhere ... It will disrupt India’s trade relations perhaps in ways the ...

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India Should Take Senior Policy Recommendations Seriously

In late 2019, a commission of senior advisers to the Government of India new set of proposals from the High Level Advisory Group (“HLAG”) on trade policy, which was established by India to review trade policy and, calls for reforms on trade, investment, and regulation that would maximize economic growth. Many of the proposals complement ...

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AFTI Targets India’s Top Trade Barriers in Public Comments

The Alliance for Fair Trade with India (“AFTI”) recently outlined the diverse and costly array of major trade barriers American exporters face when trying to enter the Indian market. AFTI provided comments to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (“USTR”) for its 2020 National Trade Estimate Report (“NTE Report”), and ...

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India’s Trade Barriers Restrict Access to Foreign Investment

India remains a land of high tariffs, impacting U.S.-India trade in significant ways that must be addressed as the two countries continue to work towards the trade deal that U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi touted last month in Houston. The Alliance for Fair Trade with India (AFTI) works tirelessly for ...

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Think Houston, think India, think biomedical innovation [Opinion]

Atul Varadhachary writes an opinion piece in the Houston Chronicle explaining why India must enact policy changes that reward investment in biopharmaceutical innovation: India must expedite the implementation of formal policy changes, especially for regulatory and intellectual property protection reforms, that reward investment in biopharmaceu...

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Indo-U.S. Trade War and its shadow on the Health sector

Amir Ullah Khan writes for the Economic Times why an environment that incentivizes innovations will ensure global research-based companies continue to address India’s unmet healthcare needs: To ensure that global research-based companies continue to address India’s unmet healthcare needs, what is needed is an environment that incentivises ...

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From nuts to walnuts, why trade war with America is bad news for India and world; global commerce relies on cooperative quid pro quo

Ashish Bharadwaj writes at Firstpost why trade differences threaten to "cast a shadow on the bilateral relationship that India and the US have successfully nurtured" over the past two decades: India and the US ought to realize that a trade war is contrary to the economic goals that both have laid out of creating jobs, boosting manufacturing and ...

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Price Controls Remain A Barrier To Robust and Reciprocal U.S.-India Economic Relationship

Without meaningful changes to regulatory policies in India, price controls that impact medical devices, pharmaceutical products, among other sectors, will remain costly barriers to trade and investment for U.S. companies in India.  In comments made this year to USTR, AFTI described particular concern with price controls in India.  To this ...

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AFTI Official Quoted in World Trade Online

As U.S. and Indian officials prepare for high-level trade talks in Washington, D.C. to determine the future of the trade relationship between the two countries, Roger Murry of the Alliance for Fair Trade with India’s (AFTI) was quoted in World Trade Online on the upcoming talks. “The Alliance for Fair Trade with India is encouraged by ...

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India Should Be Strategic in Luring Investment From Tariff-Plagued China

India is reported to be looking for ways it can capitalize on the U.S.-China trade war to its own economic benefit, with officials there considering the preferential tax rates and a tax holiday to attract companies eager to leave China in order to escape tariffs imposed by the U.S. on Chinese products. Specific industries targeted by Indian ...

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