On the eve of US President Donald Trump's visit to India, State Bank of India Managing Director Dinesh Khara has said such bilateral visits create tremendous goodwill and offer opportunities to New Delhi and Washington to spot opportunities for each other, irrespective of whether any deals are signed or not.
Trump arrives in India Monday for the state visit and will be accompanied by a high-level delegation including First Lady Melania Trump, the President's daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Such kind of visits creates a whole lot of goodwill and such kind of goodwill is a very important aspect when it comes to developing trade. Treaty or no treaty, but the confidence level itself generates enough amount of trade, Khara told PTI in an exclusive interview here.
He said that such high-level bilateral visits help both sides to understand each other better, such visits also offer an opportunity to spot opportunities for each other. So maybe irrespective of the trade deal, this will be a positive for both the countries.
India and the US were looking to sign a trade deal during Trump's visit but the US President said that he is "saving the big deal" with India for later and does not know if it will be signed before the presidential election in November.
On India and the US not signing a trade deal during the Trump visit, Khara said that such kind of decisions involve a whole lot of patience and quite comprehensive analysis. Such (trade) decisions might take time but the outcomes normally seen after such a long deliberation are generally good. So maybe it's a matter of time, but eventually it might turn out to be good for the economies.
Khara added that the perspective gets built in all these high-level bilateral visits goes a long way in terms of resolving issues. Unless there is a perspective, the vexed issues don't get resolved.
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Talking to reporters at the Joint Base Andrews outside Washington last week, Trump had said We can have a trade deal with India, but I''m really saving the big deal for later on.
"We''re doing a very big trade deal with India. We''ll have it. I don''t know if it''ll be done before the election, but we''ll have a very big deal with India," he said. During his interaction with journalists, Trump once again voiced his concern over US-India trade relations. "We''re not treated very well by India," the US president said.
India is demanding exemption from high duties imposed by the US on certain steel and aluminium products, resumption of export benefits to certain domestic products under their Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), greater market access for its products from sectors including agriculture, automobile, auto components and engineering.
On the other hand, the US wants greater market access for its farm and manufacturing products, dairy items and medical devices, and cut on import duties on some ICT products. The US has also raised concerns over high trade deficit with India which was USD 16.9 billion in 2018-19.
Trump praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said he is looking forward to his visit to India. "I happen to like Prime Minister Modi a lot," Trump said.