Washington:
The Obama administration wants India to lift the cap in both defence and insurance sectors, a top US official said.
"One thing that I think the Indian government could do would be to lift the cap on foreign equity in Indian defence firms, from 26 per cent to 49 per cent," the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake, told reporters at a conference.
Blake said there will be a announcement about sort of a new framework in trade after the US-India summit here next week.
"This is an area where we have been working very hard and made a lot of progress over the last several years. There is a lot of ongoing work that we just need to continue," he said.
"I just think there's a tremendous amount of progress that's already been made... but more is needed. Particularly I talked earlier about the need to continue to open the economy," he noted.
"For example American companies are very interested in seeing investment caps lifted in the insurance sector, in the defence sector, in several other -- in banking, in retail. And all of those would provide significant new opportunities to further expand our trade and investment," Blake said.
"One thing that I think the Indian government could do would be to lift the cap on foreign equity in Indian defence firms, from 26 per cent to 49 per cent," the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake, told reporters at a conference.
Blake said there will be a announcement about sort of a new framework in trade after the US-India summit here next week.
"This is an area where we have been working very hard and made a lot of progress over the last several years. There is a lot of ongoing work that we just need to continue," he said.
"I just think there's a tremendous amount of progress that's already been made... but more is needed. Particularly I talked earlier about the need to continue to open the economy," he noted.
"For example American companies are very interested in seeing investment caps lifted in the insurance sector, in the defence sector, in several other -- in banking, in retail. And all of those would provide significant new opportunities to further expand our trade and investment," Blake said.
