Indo-US trade to touch $ 100 billion

MUMBAI: Notwithstanding the impasse in the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, the bilateral relations have reached a new high with India gearing itself to launch four US satellites and and the two-way trade expected to more than double to touch $100 billion in the next 3-4 years.
    
After successful launch of Israeli, German and Canadian satellites from Shriharikota near Chennai, four US satellites are to be launched by Indian launch vehicles. "As part of the collaboration in space technology, four American satellites are to be launched by India in the next two years," the outgoing Consul-General Michael Owen said.
    
It is not correct to say that Sino-Indian trade is growing rapidly at the cost of Indo-US trade, Owen said. "No doubt Sino-Indian trade is growing fast. Nonetheless Indo-US trade has more than doubled from 20 billion dollars to 42 billion dollars in the last three years," he said.
    
The bilateral trade doubles every 3-4 years and "our next target is to take to 100 billion dollars," he said.
    
Regarding defence collaboration with India, he said the American companies are responding to Indian competitive tender for military hardware and fighter aircrafts like F-16 and F-18.
    
Another exciting thing will be the American companies are going for co-production with the Indian companies, Owen said.
    
Elaborating on the all time high relations between India and US, he said, there have been a series of agreements in various fields like energy, agriculture, trade, investment and open sky policies which were not there 15 years back.