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 Rows over drug patents, solar panels and software piracy have
blighted relations of late, amid heated exchanges over the arrest
and strip search in New York last December of an Indian diplomat who
was suspected of visa fraud.
That spat forced a trip to India by Assistant Secretary of State
Nisha Biswal, Washington's point person for South Asia, to be
rescheduled. Visiting New Delhi after a two-month delay, she focused
on finding ways to agree.
"Like any trading partners, we do have our differences, but the
willingness to talk about them indicates that we are indeed
confident, mature partners," Biswal said in a speech to an invited
audience.
President Barack Obama wants to bring about a strategic
"rebalancing" towards Asia and expand trade with the region of more
than 4 billion people that Washington believes could account for
half of global economic output by 2050.
Vice President Joseph Biden, on a visit to India last year, called
for bilateral trade to grow fivefold over the next 10 years to half
a trillion dollars. That is roughly the size of last year's U.S.
trade deficit.
Relations have remained fraught, however, with India's trade
minister accusing Washington of "very high and unacceptable
protectionism" on the day that Biswal arrived in the country.
The ruling Congress party government does not want to be seen as
bowing to U.S. pressure on trade ahead of a general election that
starts on April 7 and that, according to opinion polls, it is likely
to lose.
DRUG DRAMA
Biswal, in her speech, said that India's use of domestic content
requirements was hitting inward investment, inhibiting innovation
and holding the country back.
The issues of tax transparency, regulatory approvals for projects,
contract enforcement and the protection of intellectual property
needed to be tackled.
"We are addressing these concerns head on, as good partners do," she
said. "The solution here is to talk and to trade."
India worries that strong enforcement of patent protection on
proprietary medicines will deprive its 1.2 billion people, many of
them poor, from access to life-saving treatment.
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U.S. drug companies, meanwhile, are concerned that generic drug
makers operating under license in India are producing for the home
market but also undercutting them with cheap exports whose quality
has been called into question.
The Indian government was forced on Thursday to issue a rebuttal of
what it called "factually incorrect and largely unsubstantiated
reports" in the Indian and foreign media that cast into question the
quality of its drugs regulator.
The Economic Times, an Indian daily, further highlighted differences
by reporting that the government wanted the United States to review
a whistleblower policy that, it believes, creates an incentive for
drug company managers to denounce employers.
No comment was immediately available from the government on the
report.
Last year, Ranbaxy pleaded guilty to U.S. felony charges of shoddy
manufacturing practices and data falsification and agreed to pay
$500 million in civil and criminal fines, after a former Ranbaxy
executive blew the whistle on the company.
The former executive, Dinesh Thakur, received $48.6 million as the
whistleblower in the case.
"There is probably a lot of speculation that doesn't help the
situation," Biswal said in answer to a question on differences over
regulation of the drugs sector.
(Editing by Ron Popeski)
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