The United States is committed to strengthening our bilateral economic relationship with India and deepening our level of cooperation and collaboration, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in her opening remarks at the ninth meeting of economic and financial partnership between the United States and India on November 11, 2022.

“As the two largest democracies in the world, these annual gatherings are an opportunity to deepen the economic ties between our two countries,” she said, adding that collaboration in this forum can not only promote growth and stability of economies, but can also be essential to support economic prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.

“Today we face global headwinds and divergent economic pressures. The global economy was still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic when Russia launched its brutal and unwarranted invasion of Ukraine. This generated an unwanted shock to fuel and food prices and greatly exacerbated inflationary pressures,” Ms. Yellen noted in the presence of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

“But challenges like this help strengthen partnerships like the one that exists between the United States and India by demonstrating the need for cooperation and clear and open communication. Our strong trade, investment and people-to-people ties make the bilateral economic and financial relationship an essential part of this partnership,” she said.

India’s adherence to the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and efforts to make the two countries’ supply chains more resilient through what it has called “friends shoring” further strengthen bilateral relations, said the Treasury Secretary, expressing her readiness to discuss shared priorities with India. he assumes the presidency of the G20 in the coming weeks.

Referring to open, frank and productive bilateral discussions at the meeting, Ms Yellen said she also hoped that the mutual understanding “we are building will help us work together to advance our common goals, including mitigating existential risk. of climate change, the evolution of multilateral institutions, and tackling the debt burden faced by many developing countries”.