US terms India key biz partner, wants it to speed up economic growth

He praised India's journey of economic development in the past 20 years during which the volume of its GDP "increased 10 times."

"What was then a closed economy is now the 13th largest trading partner of the United States in goods. And by 2025, India is projected to become the world's third-largest economy," he said.

Despite some of these problems, India remains one of the fastest growing economies in the world and it is projected to be the third largest economy in the world by 2025 , Blake noted

He said the US companies, through the US-India Business Council, have given India some important suggestions on things that could be done to open up in the areas like

banking, retail, defense and insurance.

"That would tremendously increase the levels of FDI and help boost the levels of growth in India," Blake said.

"We have a range of economic dialogues that we conduct with our Indian counterparts. So there's a number of different initiatives under way to help, again, remove some of the blockages that do occur," he said.

Observing that 80 per cent of the infrastructure required to sustain and support India in 2025 has yet to be built, Blake saw this as an "enormous opportunity" to deepen

bilateral commercial partnership through cooperation in the field of airports, power plants, water and sanitation systems and fiber optic networks.

In his remarks, Bera said the US-Indian relationship is critical and vital to the US both economically and strategically.

Chairing the hearing, Republican Congressman from Ohio Steven

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