Doha US is frustrated

Lalit K Jha Washington, Feb 10 (PTI) The US was "extraordinarily" frustrated with the slow pace of opening up of Indian economy, despite the issue being raised at the highest level, a top Obama Administration has said "As you know, (the US) President (Barack) Obama led in exports and a mission to India as part of his Southeast Asia trip last year and I will be honest, we have been extraordinarily frustrated at the slow pace of opening that market," US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said at a Congressional hearing. Kirk was responding to a question from Congressman Joseph Crowley, Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Affairs, who wanted to know the progress made in the increasing Foreign Direct Investment cap in India''s insurance sector. "I have been interested in for a very long time is the investment caps in the Indian insurance industry. Right now American companies can only own up to 26 per cent of the value of an insurance company within India. Even though we''ve been working to increase that number to 49 per cent," Crowley said. "What is the status of that issue and what more can be done to ensure that our service companies can export their services to India on a more level playing field?" he said. Kirk, who has a very good personal relationship with Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, said the United States has a number of engagements with India. "I lead a trade sort of policy forum in which we have raised these issues of them opening up their economy for more. "This would be a case that when we can finish our mid-review we are also looking to perhaps get India to sign a bilateral investment treaty which would remove those caps not only in insurance but liberalise their markets across the board," Kirk said. There''s great opportunity for Americans in the retail, in the agriculture and in the manufacturing sectors, he said, adding "some of this US was trying to address if we can get, frankly, the right balance in the Doha round. "The rest of it we''re going to continue to see if we can''t find the right buttons to push in our bilateral engagements." PTI LKJ

The above is a news item, I am also not sure, whether there is level playing field when it comes to learning from India, Is US seriously interested in learning from India? We are talking about FDI, level playing field, it is actually level paying field, now, think of what Insurance does to an economy.

You keep increasing the cap in insurance, which will surge into inflation, uncontrolled, you will get into the vicious cycle of increasing the increasing the face value of things and not the actual value of things, when will US understand that the real value of a product or a service comes from work, and not on increasing just the book value of things. We can see from history that US has been thriving on an economy which is exploiting the other world economies, with just their marketing gimmicks and insurance valuation, that they have suffered from the same, in the recent depression that US went through, it was because of India's caution, that we did not get that severely affected, if not we would have been in doll drums, people fail to understand that India is growing, but the important statistics to look for is that the percentage of people under the poverty line in India is 42%, which is really huge, still there are people who are in India with an average daily income of less than 33 Rupees.

It is Hightime that US understands this situation and first learn from India as to what is opening up, what is democracy, and more importantly what is real economics!!!