US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor on Thursday said negotiations for a bilateral trade deal were progressing at an “incredible pace”, adding that the “big items are done” and expressing confidence that both sides would finalise the pact.
During an interactive session at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, Gor echoed External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s assessment of the progress in the proposed India-US trade agreement, saying “we are very close to landing it,” news agency PTI reported.
Asked about the status of the negotiations, Gor said, "I won't like to get into too many details at this stage, and let the ministers announce that. But in the grand scheme of things, big items are done.”
“We're actively engaged... Within three weeks of arriving here, we announced a trade deal. The European Union trade deal took almost 20 years. So we're at an incredible pace, and I am confident that we will get it done,” Gor said, according to PTI.
The India-European Union Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was concluded in January after nearly 20 years of negotiations.
“We have been at it for a year-and-a-half. We are at an incredible pace, I would say almost an unheard of pace… So I am confident that we will get it (the deal) done,” Gor said.
India has maintained that both sides remain engaged in negotiations for a mutually beneficial bilateral trade agreement.
The two countries continue to work towards resolving differences over the proposed deal, with negotiations heading towards a “landing point”, Jaishankar had said during an earlier session at the Forum. He also noted that the core fundamentals of the bilateral strategic partnership remained unchanged.
Gor said, “We are getting there. I am confident that we will have a trade deal here, as you heard Dr Jaishankar say right on this stage, and we are very close to landing it.”
The US envoy underlined that the proposed agreement was a “very complex trade deal”.
A lot of smaller countries do not have “tens of thousands of points to figure out”, he said.
“You are always going to have something, some small items… New items develop constantly, new technology comes up, new issues arise – which is natural. A country like India with 1.4 billion people is a complex place, and so matching everything won’t be done overnight. But the big picture, the big framework, the big items are done,” Gor said, added PTI.
Gor’s comments assume significance as they come days ahead of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s scheduled visit to India.
The envoy also referred to a US Supreme Court ruling related to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
“The Supreme Court had ruled that law unconstitutional, so the administration had to go back and rework some of those,” he said.
The remark came in the context of the complexities involved in negotiating the proposed trade agreement.
Gor also said that US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer and India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal were discussing the proposed deal down to its smaller details.
“You have an unmatched market here for our companies… You have 1.4 billion people. And, American products are popular in India. The NBA (National Basketball Association, a professional basketball league in the US) has got a following here, and you don't even have a league yet.
“So, for the private sector to be able to come to India to compete, to have their foot in the door, you have a very pragmatic prime minister... That welcomes outside investment,” Gor said.
“Pick any sector, and we're working together at it. If you look at defence, we have co-production happening here in India. If you look at IT, it's unmatched. Google, Microsoft, Adobe, Micron – each one of them is opening data centres and chip manufacturing units here that work with our companies, hand in hand, in the US.
“So when a job is created in India, a counter job is created in the US. It is an incredible win-win situation that I would call unmatched. Not a lot of countries in the world have such limitless potential,” he said.
(With inputs from PTI)