WASHINGTON: Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal led his country's delegation to a two-day meeting of the Indo-U.S. high technology cooperation group that concluded here Wednesday. Addressing a press conference, he said if the two countries were intent on building a strategic relationship, as had been the case of late, "it is logical that we should liberalise the trade in strategic items between India and the U.S." Sibal said: "A lot of things had been going on behind the scene," including the completion by the U.S. of a "very active" interagency review of the technologies which could be transferred without violating existing laws. "I suppose some further consideration would need to be given at the high-political level at the end of which we remain hopeful that there will be further liberalisation" in the field of technology transfer, he said. He said the important thing was that the idea of liberalising the existing regulations governing technology transfer had already been accepted. "Now the issue is what can be done in concrete terms." He was hopeful that by November, when the cooperation group had its next meeting in New Delhi, some more concrete gains would be visible. The group was set up following an agreement between Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and President George W. Bush at their meeting in November 2001 with an intention "to create a mechanism to stimulate high technology strategy for dual purpose trade in goods and technologies". This was the first initiative of its kind taken by the United State vis-à-vis any country and it took off very quickly, he said. The group is not simply a government-to-government entity but it involves the private sector on both sides. As part of the cooperation group's activity, the U.S. Commerce Department organised a meeting here Tuesday on "financing of innovations" in which representatives of 150 American and about 30 Indian companies participated. "I should say that it was a remarkable turnout on both sides, particularly on the Indian side because the Indian businessmen came all the way only for this meeting," Sibal said. The meeting focused on four areas, including IT and defence technologies. In all these areas, some very instructive and positive ideas were thrown up which were subsequently discussed at the technology cooperation group meeting, Sibal said. Reverting to Indo-U.S. relations, he said: "The fact that we have important subject matters to discuss at the White House, the Department of Defence and the State Department itself indicated the much greater intensity of engagement that now exists between India and the U.S." "I think it is also appropriate to note that not only the frequency but the level of access that we get now does connote a major, major change in how the two countries look at each other and how they see their engagement."
Source: IANS