Ahead of the India-US Trade Policy Forum meeting, an influential business advocacy group asked the Trump Administration on Wednesday to press India to address issues that limit market access or undermine the competitiveness of US industries. In a letter to US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the Alliance for Fair Trade with India (AFTI) expressed concerns that “India is failing to provide adequate and effective protection of intellectual property (IP) rights and fair access to its markets.”India maintains and continues to propose significant IP and market access barriers, said the letter signed by Brian Pomper, AFTI executive director. Specifically, the letter cites price controls, forced localisation, technical barriers to trade and intellectual property barriers as the issues of significant concern that US industries face in India. The letter urges Lighthizer to make use of all bilateral dialogue and trade tools available to improve the US-India commercial relationship and implement concrete, tangible progress to address issues in India that limit market access or undermine the competitiveness of US industries. “The innovation industry is encouraged by the government of India’s positive action on software patentability and intellectual property rights awareness, as well as its pursuit of much-needed procedural reforms,” said Patrick Kilbride, vice president of International Intellectual Property for the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC).

Source: Hindustan Times October 25, 2017 17:48 UTC