(Image source from: indiatoday.in)

Indian Ambassador Harsh Vardhan Shringla comments suggesting that the bilateral relationship between India and the united States is evolving fast both in the strategic and economic domains and is the key to India’s growth domain.

“Inherent in India’s growth story is a natural partnership with the united States. This partnership is evolving both in the strategic and economic domains,” said Harsh Vardhan Shringla to the students and faculty of the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, on Friday.

“Our defense procurement relationship has gone up from almost nil 15 years ago to nearly 20 billion today. India is now a major defense partner of the united states. We have signed a number of foundation agreements and our militaries exercise regularly with each other,” he added.

Mr. Shringla said, “ India-US bilateral trade has been growing at 10 percent year-on-year basis to reach $142 billion in 2018 and has also become more balanced.”

He told the audience that, “the investment relationship is also bi-directional with 2,000 US companies investing around $40 billion in India covering almost every sector of the modern economy. At the same time, 200 Indian companies have invested $18 billion dollars in the US creating more than 1,00,000 jobs directly.”

“Our strategic energy partnership has also grown with India importing nearly 8 billion dollars of oil and gas this year,” Shringla said.

“We have long term cooperation in health technology with US agencies such as National Institute of Health and a range of collaborative research products focused on understanding chronic and infectious diseases at basic molecular/clinical level and development of new vaccines and treatment of multi drug-resistant tuberculosis,” he added.

By Shrithika Kushangi