US trade body approves funding to develop integrated aviation hub in Hissar

Washington: The US Trade and Development Agency has approved grant funding for technical assistance to help create an integrated aviation hub at the Hisar Airport in Haryana, aiming to develop airport cargo and logistics infrastructure to strengthen India's supply chain network, a top official has said.

US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) Director Enoh T Ebong announced this on Tuesday at the three-day US-India Aviation Summit here.

“I am delighted to announce that USTDA has approved grant funding for technical assistance to help create an integrated aviation hub at the Hisar Airport in the State of Haryana," she said.

"Our work will help develop airport cargo and logistics infrastructure that will strengthen India's supply chain network,” she said without providing the quantum of the grant funding from the USTDA.

“Our partner for this activity will be the Haryana Airports Development Corporation (HADC), and our assistance will include capacity building to facilitate HADC's implementation of the integrated aviation hub going forward,” she said.

Top officials from India and the US, along with representatives from the corporate sector, are attending the seventh biennial US-India Aviation Summit in Washington DC.

Ebong said the HADC will select a US firm to perform this technical assistance.

Asserting that this is an important opportunity, she said, “Our portfolio continues to grow and, importantly, take the shape of the priorities that our partners have defined as critical." "And yet, even with about 40 activities to show for our efforts under the ACP (Aviation Cooperation Programme) umbrella, we have only begun to scratch the surface of what this partnership could become,” she said.

The top USTDA official said there are 10 aviation projects across India to which US companies can contribute.

“But we want to do more. And this summit is an opportunity to set a course for the next chapter of our mutually beneficial aviation partnerships," she said.

"As we work together over the next several days and beyond, let us think without limitation and plan with intent that has tapped into our respective wells of creativity and into the spirit of true equal partnership that characterises our aviation work and sets an example for the rest of the world,” she said.

Ebong said what makes this summit so exceptional is the significance of the world's largest and oldest democracies working together in a sector "so integral to the global economy".

This relationship benefits immensely from an Indian diaspora community in the United States that has created cultural, educational, and business ties between the two countries that will endure for generations, she said.

This is the first summit to invite wider participation from across South Asia, including aviation leaders from Bhutan, the Maldives and Nepal.

For more than 30 years, USTDA has formed partnerships across India and South Asia to help mobilise capital and bring US innovation to the region's infrastructure priorities, she said.

“Since the founding of the India ACP in 2007, USTDA has supported numerous project preparation and partnership-building activities across a full range of shared priorities, like sustainable airport master planning and more efficient air traffic management," she said.

"Importantly, we have also funded executive training for the current and next generation of India's aviation industry leaders,” Ebong said.