United States Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai has urged India to ensure that its current end-to-end online system and associated import policies for laptops do not impede trade in future.

The development came at the 14th Ministerial-level meeting of the India- United States Trade Policy Forum (TPF) in New Delhi on January 12, the Ministry of Commerce & Industry said in a statement on Saturday.

The meeting was co-chaired by Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal and US Trade Representative, Ambassador Katherine Tai.

Recently introduced import requirements for computers, tablets, and servers was one of the key topics discussed at the meeting.

According to the official statement, Ambassador Tai expressed a willingness to collaborate with India on the mutual goal of enhancing supply chain resilience in the technology sector. In response, India conveyed its commitment to ongoing discussions with the US and other stakeholders to address these concerns.

Notably, the import management system currently in operation is seen as a step down from the government’s earlier stance of imposing a licensing regime.

In August last year, India implemented import restrictions on various IT hardware, such as laptops, personal computers (including tablets), microcomputers, large/mainframe computers, and specific data processing machines.

It aimed to boost domestic manufacturing and decrease reliance on imports from China, with the new regulations enforced from November 1, 2023.

In October, India announced an ‘import management system’ for IT hardware, including laptops and computers.

Under this system, IT hardware companies will need to register and disclose data related to their imports, as well as countries from which they import, among other things. It came as a relief to the industry which feared that the previous licensing notification could restrict imports.

Apart from this, the Ministers also appreciated the strong momentum in the India-US bilateral trade in goods and services which continued to rise and has likely surpassed $200 billion in calendar year 2023 despite the challenging global trade environment.

The bilateral goods and services trade between US and India has almost doubled since 2014, it signals accelerated growth benefitting both countries.

At the meeting, they also discussed the foundation to launch future Joint Initiatives in certain areas, Joint Facilitative Mechanism (JFM) to mitigate non-tariff barriers, High-Level Principles on Digitalization of Trade Documents, Social Security Totalization Agreement, and India’s designation as a TAA Compliant country among other key topics.