The India-United States ties had significantly improved over the last few decades, becoming “stronger” and “matured” defying changes in the governments in both the countries, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Friday.
Mr. Jaitley was speaking at a reception hosted by India’s Ambassador to the U.S. Navtej Sarna.
He said the Government of India was looking forward to working with the Trump administration to strengthen the various dimensions of the ties.
Stressing that India-U.S. relationship had bipartisan support in both the countries, he said, “In one sense, it is a bipartisan relationship. I am sure it would be a great privilege for us to continue with the new administration to strengthen the various dimensions of this relationship.''
Mr. Jaitley on Thursday met U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, the first Cabinet level interaction between the two countries under the Trump administration.
“There is a little more optimism this year than I have seen in the last three years. This seems to be the good news, as far as these meetings are concerned,” he said.
“I met the Commerce Secretary yesterday. I will meet the Treasury Secretary tomorrow. This would be the first contact at that level between the new administration and the Government of India,” he said.
During the meeting with Mr. Ross, Mr. Jaitley strongly raised India’s concerns over the Trump administration’s move to tighten H-1B visa regime, highlighting the key role played by Indian professionals in boosting the U.S. economy.
President Donald Trump, earlier this week, signed an executive order to tighten the rules of the H-1B visa programme to stop its “abuse” and ensure that the visas are given to the “most-skilled or highest paid” petitioners, a decision that would impact India’s $150 billion IT industry.
Mr. Jaitley outlined the significant contributions that skilled Indian professionals had made to the U.S. economy and expressed the hope that the U.S. administration will take this aspect into consideration while taking any decisions.
To attend IMF meetings
Mr. Jaitley, leading an Indian delegation, arrived here on April 20 to attend the annual Spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
In addition to his meetings and presentations, Mr. Jaitley is also scheduled to attend meetings of other multilateral forums, including that of the G-20 finance ministers.
Speaking about India’s growth story, he said,
“In the last three years, even in the midst of slowdown across the world, India has been able to grow in the range of seven to eight per cent. That is the rate of growth that we have fairly maintained. Our all other economic parameters seems to be fairly well under control.
''The significant part of our economy today is, that there is perhaps for the first time, a huge amount of popular support as far as economic reforms are concerned.
“India has become one of the most open economies of the world. Most of our sectors are open for international investment. And we have been attracting one of the largest investments that any country has been attracting in the world. And it is combination of this investment which is coming into India, coupled with higher public spending, even as the private sector spending was a little low, that has kept the Indian growth process going.”
The environment for doing business had considerably smoothened. “India has learned from its past experiences. And this itself has helped in cleaning up the entire process. We have now undertaken a very ambitious reform of cleaning up the system of political funding in India, something which had been eluding Indian democracy for quite sometime,” he said.
