Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal participated in the third in-person Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) meeting held on Tuesday and emphasized enhanced collaboration to realize collective aims of the IPEF, particularly on the need for mobilizing affordable financing for clean economy transition and for enhancing technology cooperation.

The Minister also urged early implementation of the envisaged cooperative work under IPEF, including on bio-fuels alliance suggested by India, said the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in a statement on Wednesday.

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During this Ministerial meeting, the first-of-its-kind IPEF Supply Chain Resilience Agreement was signed by the Minister along with the Ministers from other IPEF partner countries.

The Agreement is expected to make IPEF supply chains more resilient, robust, and well-integrated, and contribute towards economic development and progress of the region as a whole.

At the meet, ministers from IPEF partner countries had productive discussions on the substantial progress made by the IPEF partners on Pillar-III, Clean Economy and Pillar-IV, Fair Economy.

On the sidelines of the IPEF Ministerial, Goyal held bilateral meetings with Gina Raimondo, United States Secretary of Commerce, Tengku Zafrul Aziz, Minister of International Trade & Industry, Ministry of International Trade & Industry, Malaysia, and Airlangga Hartarto, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Republic of Indonesia.

The Union Minister discussed bilateral collaboration on trade, commerce and investment, enhanced business engagements, WTO matters, and other issues of mutual interest.

During the interaction with his counterparts from ASEAN countries, the Minister suggested expedited conclusion of the AITIGA review.

Importantly, Piyush Goyal and the US Secretary of Commerce co-chaired a kick-off industry roundtable titled, “Decoding the “Innovation Handshake”: US – India Entrepreneurship Partnership”, which was co-hosted by the US-India Business Council (USIBC) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and supported by National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) and Startup India, CEOs from major ICT companies, executives from venture capital firms, and founders of startups in the critical and emerging technology space.

On his visit, the minister held an interaction with Indian entrepreneurs in the Western United States. The interaction was organized by the Consulate General of India in San Francisco in collaboration with IIT Alumni & TIE Global.

Addressing the gathering, Goyal spoke about the immense potential that exists in India and the role that the Indian diaspora, particularly the entrepreneurs, could play in accelerating India’s economic growth and development. He also exhorted them to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for being vocal for local, and then turning local into global.