FICCI welcomes the historic meeting between Prime Minister Modi and President Obama in Washington DC and the operationalization of the India US Civil Nuclear Deal. Indian industry welcomes India’s entry to the MTCR regime and hopes US will do the heavy lifting to push for India’s membership at the NSG to be decided later this month. Already India looks set for membership at the MTCR regime and now looks for support for membership at Wassenaar Agreement and Australia Group.
It will help the India-US collaboration in high technology in critical areas and will enable high value technology embedded trade for ‘Make in India’ projects. This also opens up opportunities for similar cooperation with countries like US and France. In this direction, it is commendable to get support for India’s NSG entry Switzerland and Mexico too. Irrespective of the end-result in terms of NSG membership, India’s bilateral relations with these countries are bound to achieve greater heights.
FICCI Secretary General Dr. Didar Singh stated, “Indian industry is ready to meet international obligations and licensing norms to ensure that technology acquisition, manufacture and trade of dual use items that will not be diverted or re-exported for unauthorized use. Indian industry is ready to work on Internal Compliance Programs and international best practices to ensure India’s non-proliferation records”. FICCI is working with DGFT and the DISA Division of MEA on various industry programs for better propagation of knowledge on risk of diversion of advanced technology products for weapon uses, and take appropriate counter-measures to ensure security of supply chains.