The maiden meeting of the India-US Strategic Trade Dialogue (IUSSTD) was held in Washington D.C. on Tuesday to carry forward the agenda of “strategic technology and trade collaborations,” as envisaged under the India-US initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET), launched by the US President Joe Biden and the Indian PM Narendra Modi during the Quad summit last year.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra, the US Under Secretary for Industry and Security, Alan Estevez, and Ambassador Victoria Nuland, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, actively participated in the bilateral dialogue organised to expand mutually beneficial strategic technology partnership in various domains.
Overview
During the meeting, the US and Indian delegations discussed ways for the governments to “facilitate the development and trade of technologies in critical domains such as semiconductors, space, telecom, quantum, AI, defence, biotech, and others.”
The delegations also reviewed current multilateral export control regimes and best practices in their respective countries to help both nations to adopt these practices to promote bilateral trade.
Further, the Indian and US delegates agreed on the need for information dissemination among the users through workshops to increase awareness about the export control rules and regulations.
Expressing satisfaction at the first dialogue’s outcome and lauding the active participation of India, Ambassador Nuland called it “a very productive first US-India Strategic Trade Dialogue.” She added that the dialogue would help grow both economies, and increased bilateral trade and high-tech collaborations would create employment in both countries.
The Indian Embassy in Washington said the dialogue would increase the opportunities for co-production, co-development, and industrial collaborations in critical technologies.
US and India held the maiden Strategic Trade Dialogue (IUSTTD) in Washington DC in order to facilitate the trade and development of critical technologies such as #AI, semi-conductors, telecom, quantum and biotech.
— Dhairya Maheshwari (@dhairyam14) June 7, 2023
New Delhi was represented by foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra,… pic.twitter.com/AXydBh569e
Milestone Dialogue’s Key Outcome
One of the major results of the dialogue was the setting up of a regular monitoring group to review the progress in bilateral trade and high-tech collaborations between the countries.
Both countries agreed to continue the IUSSTD to strengthen a comprehensive global strategic partnership between India and the US.
The success of the dialogue demonstrated the countries shared commitment to promote and foster the development of critical technologies helping to consolidate their strategic partnership in an increasingly multipolar world.