US holds rare meet on Indo-US economic ties

Signifying the changing focus of the Obama administration towards India a key advisory committee of the State Department on International Economic Policy held a rare meeting on Indo-US economic relationship.

The Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy meets four times a year. It is possibly for the first time that the committee held a discussion on India-US economic relationship.

This was done at the request of the State Department, the Advisory Committee Chairman Ted Kassinger told PTI after the meeting.

"There are comments from a number of committee members on intellectual property rights and on government procurement areas where concern was expressed about an offset. There was a lot of interest in support of the idea of developing cooperation in environmental technology," he said.

Members of the committee were earlier briefed by the Secretary of State for South and Central Asia (Deputy Assistant on Indo-US economic relationship) Michael Owen.

There was a lot of support to renew efforts to get the Doha round moving forward, Kassinger said. Members also discussed issues revolving around climate change, and what India's role would be at the upcoming Copenhagen Summit later this year.

"There is hope that there would be progress," Kassinger said.