Piyush Goyal to visit Washington for trade talks

New Delhi: Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal will visit Washington next week as India, and the US are planning to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement, an official said.

The visit will start from March 3 and the minister is expected to be in the US till Friday, the official added.

During the recent visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington, India and the US announced their commitment to more than double the two-way commerce to $500 billion by 2030 and negotiate the first tranche of a mutually beneficial, multi-sector Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) by fall of 2025.

Goyal is likely to hold talks with US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during the visit.

The commerce ministry has already started engagements with different departments on the India-US trade aspects and related developments.

The proposed agreement is an opportunity to boost bilateral trade and investments between the two countries amid threat of US President Donald Trump to impose higher tariffs on Indian goods.

Tariffs are import duties imposed and collected by government and paid by the companies to bring foreign goods into the country.

The commerce ministry takes views of all ministries concerned on proposed trade agreements. The nature of the agreement would be decided by both sides.

Goyal has earlier stated that the two countries can offer concessions and duty reductions, as their economies complement each other.

Normally in a free trade agreement, two trading partners either eliminate or significantly reduce customs duties on the maximum number of goods traded between them. Besides, they ease norms to promote trade in services and boost investments.

During the first term of US President Donald Trump, the two countries had discussed a mini-trade deal, but it was shelved by the Joe Biden administration as they were not in favour of such pacts.

In 2023, the US-India bilateral trade in goods and services stood at $190.08 billion ($123.89 billion in goods and $66.19 billion in services trade).

That year, India's merchandise exports to the US stood at $83.77 billion, while imports were $40.12 billion, leaving a trade gap of $43.65 billion in favour of India. The country's services export to America was $36.33 billion in 2023, while imports were aggregated at $29.86 billion. The trade gap (difference between imports and exports) was $6.47 billion in favour of New Delhi. During 2021-24, America was the largest trading partner of India. The US is one of the few countries with which India has a trade surplus.

In 2023-24, the US was the largest trading partner of India with $119.71 billion bilateral trade in goods ($77.51 billion worth of exports, $42.19 billion of imports, with $35.31 billion trade surplus).

India has received $67.8 billion in foreign direct investments from America during April 2000 and September 2024.