Ministers of both the countries acknowledged the significance of creating resilient and secure supply chains
At the recently held Twelfth Ministerial meeting of the Trade Policy Forum (TPF), ’the US and India agreed that the TPF Working Groups on agriculture, non-agriculture goods, services, investment, and intellectual property should be re-activated to address issues of mutual concern on an ongoing basis. Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal and US Trade Representative, Ambassador Katherine Tai co-chaired the TPF meeting.
Further, the ministers acknowledged the significance of creating resilient and secure supply chains. In this context, they agreed that India and the US could, together with like-minded partners, take a leading role in developing secure supply chains in critical sectors of trade and technology.
The ministers acknowledged the tangible benefits accruing to Indian and US farmers and businesses, by mutually resolving certain outstanding market access issues through increased bilateral engagement. Both sides also agreed to continue working to expand bilateral trade in agricultural and food products through the TPF Working Group on Agricultural Goods and committed to holding technical dialogues on animal health, plant health, and food safety and other technical issues in 2022.
Moreover, the ministers welcomed the agreement to finalise work on market access facilitation for mangoes and pomegranates, pomegranate arils from India, and cherries and alfalfa hay for animal feed from the US. In addition, the US agreed to work to complete India’s request for table grapes access to the US, and India agreed to work to finalise the mutually agreed export certificate to allow the importation of US pork and pork products.
