Minister of Trade and Industry Piyush Goyal on Thursday held a bilateral meeting with US trade representative Katherine Tai here and discussed ways to improve trade and investment relations.

The minister is in the US to attend the Indian-As Strategic Partnership Forum and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework Minister. The meeting with the USTR was held during the Minister’s meeting.

IPEF was launched together by the US and other partner countries in the Indo-Pacific region on May 23 in Tokyo. This seeks to strengthen economic partnerships among countries that participate with the aim of increasing resilience, sustainability, inclusive, economic growth, justice and competitiveness in the region.

The 14th members of IPEF are – Australia, Brunei, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the US. The US exceeds China to become India’s main trading partners in 2021-22, which reflects the strengthening of economic ties between the two countries.

According to data from the Ministry of Trade, in 2021-22, bilateral trade between the US and India was established in USD 119.42 billion compared to USD 80.51 billion in 2020-21. Exports to the US increased to USD 76.11 billion in 2021-22 from USD 51.62 billion in the previous fiscal year, while imports rose to USD 43.31 billion compared to around USD 29 billion in 2020-21.