US Vice President Joe Biden today acknowledged India's decision to increase FDI in certain sectors as he stressed on the need for working on a wide range of issues, including civil nuclear co-operation, bilateral investment treaty and policies protecting innovation.
"We're engaging directly with India, as it makes some fundamental choices about its own economic future," Biden said ahead of his India trip, which is the first by an American Vice President in more than half-a-century.
Biden is scheduled to leave for India and Singapore tomorrow.
"Just this week India announced that it will relax caps on foreign direct investment in certain sectors. We still have a lot of work to do on a wide range of issues, including the civil-nuclear cooperation, bilateral investment treaty, policies protecting innovation," Biden said.
"There's a lot of work to do. But we believe going with an open mind and listening as well as making our case, we believe it can be done," the Vice President said.
"In the last 13 years we've increased five-fold our bilateral trade, reaching nearly a hundred billion dollars. But if you look at it from a distance, an uninformed person, looking at it from a distance, there is no reason that if our countries make the right choices, trade cannot grow five-fold or more," he said.
"I'm traveling to India next week -- 20, even 10 years ago, some might have suggested that India be left out of the discussions about the Asia- Pacific.
One of the reasons why President (Barack) Obama called our relations with India "a defining partnership of the century ahead" is that India is increasingly looking east as a force for security and growth in Southeast Asia and beyond," he said.
"To us, that's welcome news. We encourage it. We welcome India's engagement in the region, and we welcome its efforts to develop new trade and transportation links by land and by sea in the area," he said.
Opening the doors to shore up foreign investments, India on Tuesday liberalised FDI limits in a dozen sectors, including allowing 100 per cent in telecom and higher limits in 'state-of-the-art' defence manufacturing, to boost the sagging economy.
Biden said he will also visit Singapore, a country of five million people who has become the 17th largest economy in the world, a partner in the TPP and an important player in Southeast Asia and beyond.
