Regardless of who wins the 2016 American presidential election, relationship between India and the USA will continue to remain high priority, said Richard Verma, US ambassador to India here on Friday.
“There is not only bipartisan support for the Indo-US relationship, it is now a non-partisan issue. I am confident that regardless of who wins the 2016 presidential election, Indo-US relationship will continue to be high priority,” said Mr. Verma while talking to media persons here.
When asked if India needs to be worried about extreme views expressed during US presidential election campaign, the US ambassador said: “Extreme comments uttered during the campaign have to be taken with a grain of salt. Some of the comments have been condemned by both Democrats and Republicans alike.”
Commenting on the bilateral relation and trade, he said: “It is not about having US companies coming to India, it has to be two-way trade which is more sustainable. Right now it is about 2 per cent of US export coming to India and 2 per cent of India’s export to USA. That is not good enough given the size of two economies.”
“That’s why even though we have crossed the great threshold of USD 105 billion in two-way trade, President of USA and Prime Minister India really do hope we can touch USD 500 billion figure,” Mr. Verma pointed out.
“The year 2015 was a good year in India-USA relationship. We broke all previous records in trade, defence cooperation, number of students studying in United States, number of American companies coming here and number of Indian companies operating in USA. It exceeded expectation in every sector. In 2016, we will continue to broaden our cooperation,” the US ambassador maintained.
On issue of growing concerns in India about US increasing fees for H-1B and L-1 visas, Mr. Verma said: “It was Congressional decision on 9/11 victim fund provisioning, not directed towards any country.”
Earlier, the US ambassador met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and discussed measures to strengthen trade relationship between America and Odisha.
