Biden urges govt to open up to US companies

AFP/MumbaiUS Vice President Joe Biden yesterday urged India to improve investment conditions and remove obstacles faced by American companies which restrict trade between the world’s biggest democracies.Biden, the first US vice president to visit India in three decades, listed intellectual property concerns, requirements to buy local content and inconsistent tax treatment as worries for foreign investors.“These are tough problems, but they have to be negotiated and worked through to meet the potential of this relationship,” he said in a speech at the Bombay Stock Exchange focused on boosting annual trade from its current level of nearly $100bn.He also noted that India’s “instinct to protect your industries is understandable. But we need to be candid with each other about the obstacles which exist when economies do business”. Biden is the most senior US official to visit India since President Barack Obama in 2010, and the four-day visit is designed to revive flagging momentum in relations.Problems on both sides have soured ties, leading many analysts to conclude that a relationship described by Obama as one of the “defining partnerships of the 21st century” is far from fulfilling its potential.Biden also alluded to looming friction at a meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Bali in December over India’s highly protected farming industry.“We need to find a way forward to address India’s... legitimate concern about food security without distorting global trade. It is a difficult problem but it must be addressed,” he said.Despite a nuclear energy deal in 2008 championed by the US, Washington has been left embittered after its companies lost out to French and Russian competitors in the race to sell new reactors.In the retail sector, US supermarket chain Walmart has been unable to open new stores because of local sourcing rules that require it to buy 30% of its products from small-scale Indian industries.Walmart, which said last year it wanted to launch its first supermarket within two years, has told the government it is unable to meet the demand, according to press reports on Tuesday.Officials have pointed to Biden’s visit as a chance to improve the investment climate between the US and India, where the government has been trying to introduce pro-business reforms to boost the sluggish economy.After his speech, the vice president held talks with a small group of corporate leaders including Ratan Tata, former chairman of the sprawling Tata conglomerate, and Azim Premji, chairman of IT outsourcing giant Wipro. “There was an honest discussion about how both governments... could be productive in reducing some of the barriers that impact on trade and commerce,” Biden told reporters.