India, US to discuss global economy, climate finance, other issues of mutual interest today

Both leaders will lead the 9th meeting of the India-US Economic Financial Partnership. Yellen is on a day-long visit to India on November 11.

“During the 9th India-US EFP meeting, both sides will discuss issues of mutual interest including Climate Finance, multilateral issues, India-US cooperation at G20 under India’s Presidency, taxation, supply chain resilience, global economy and macroeconomic outlook,” the Finance Ministry said in a tweet.

“On the sidelines of the 9th India-US EFP meeting, @nsitharaman and @SecYellen will also participate in a Roundtable interaction on India-US Business and Economic Opportunities with top Business Leaders and eminent economists,” another tweet said.

In an interview with PTI, Yellen had said India will “benefit” from the proposed price cap on oil arguing that the United States does not want Russia to “profit unduly” from the war by enjoying prices that are essentially very high due to its Ukrainian invasion.

Developing countries like India and China have been increasingly buying discounted Russian oil as global energy prices remain high and Western nations seek to scale down their reliance on Russian energy.

Janet Yellen lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent sharper tone on the conflict after he avoided condemning Russia’s invasion for most of the year. “Prime Minister Modi was correct when he said that this ‘is not an era of war,'” Yellen said in the excerpts released by the Treasury.

“I believe that ending Russia’s war is a moral imperative. It is also the single best thing we can do to help the global economy. This is a view that is broadly shared among policymakers of the world’s major economies,” Yellen said.

Officials in India, a country with longstanding ties to Russia, have said they would continue to buy Russian oil at a discount, because this benefits India’s economy, despite the efforts of the United States and Western allies to impose a price cap on Russian oil exports.

Treasury officials have said they are not seeking to persuade India to stop buying Russian oil but want to strengthen U.S. ties to India through trade and financial integration.

Much of the focus is to make fast-growing India a counterbalance to China in Asia and a reliable source of goods and services for the U.S. economy.

“The United States and India share an interest in strengthening our supply chains in a world where certain governments wield trade as a geopolitical weapon,” Yellen said in her excerpted remarks, citing Russia’s restrictions on natural gas sales to Europe as an example.

*With inputs from agencies