PM Narendra Modi, President Barack Obama Gun For $500 Bn Trade Target

Obama welcomed Modi's ambitious plan to extend basic financial services to all its citizens through the Jan Dhan Yojana.

"The President and Prime Minister underlined the important contribution that US locomotive technology, equipment to monitor railsystem assets, and US best practices can play in modernising India's vast railway network, including accessing programmes of US Trade and Development Agency in this work," the statement said.

Agreeing on the need to foster innovation in a manner that promotes economic growth and job creation, the leaders committed to establish an annual high-level Intellectual Property (IP) Working Group with appropriate decision-making and technical-level meetings as part of the Trade Policy Forum.

They recognised in particular the contribution of the Indian and US Information Technology industry and the IT-enabled service industry in strengthening India-US trade and investment relations.

Modi and Obama said they looked forward to the annual US-India Economic and Financial Partnership meeting in early 2015.

They also welcomed the expansion of partnership to oversight of financial institutions, including between Reserve Bank of India and the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Office of the Comptroller of Currency.

The two leaders also agreed to reinvigorate the India-US CEO Forum, and welcomed India's offer to host the Forum for the second time in early 2015.

In order to share best practices in manufacturing and work toward greater harmonisation of standards, the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Manufacturing Extension Partnership programme will start a dialogue with Indian counterparts.

The two countries plan to work expeditiously through several joint initiatives to facilitate greater confidence in cross-border trade and investment.

"The President also offered to support the Prime Minister to achieve his goal of preparing young Indians for 21st century jobs through new partnerships to share expertise and global standards for skills development in India, including by reinvigorating the Higher Education Dialogue," the joint statement said.
Read Also: India's Business With ASEAN Countries Only 30 percent Of Total Trade
5 Advertising Agencies Which Brought A New Transformation