Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden will have a substantive engagement on the sidelines of the Quad summit on Saturday, and the two sides will sign at least two agreements following the talks.
One pact will be related to the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) and the other memorandum of understanding (MoU) will be on the India-US drug framework, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said here on Thursday.
Modi will pay a three-day visit to the United States beginning September 21 to attend the annual Quad summit and address the “Summit of the Future” at the United Nations General Assembly.
Modi will hold separate bilateral talks with Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida on the sidelines of the Quad summit in Wilmington, Delaware on September 21.
At the meeting with Biden, Modi is also expected to apprise US President of his recent talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on finding a peaceful solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“There will be an opportunity to have a substantive engagement between the prime minister and President Biden, where they will have the opportunity to review the comprehensive global strategic partnership between India and the US, which today covers almost every aspect of human endeavour through the 50-plus engagements and bilateral dialogue mechanisms,” Misri said. He was briefing the media on Modi’s trip to the US.
“It will also give an opportunity to thank President Biden for his pioneering role in strengthening the India-US relationship and several new initiatives, such as the initiative on critical and emerging technologies,” Misri said.
The foreign secretary said there will be an opportunity for both sides to exchange a few agreements, including one on the IPEF.
The pact on the IPEF is related to the clean economy and fair economy pillars.
In line with Washington’s long-term vision for the Indo-Pacific, Biden launched the ambitious Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) in May 2022. It is an initiative aimed at deeper cooperation among like-minded countries in areas like clean energy, supply-chain resilience and digital trade.
Besides India, Japan and Australia, the other member countries of the IPEF are Brunei Darussalam, Fiji, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The IPEF has four pillars -- trade, supply-chain resilience, clean economy and fair economy. India is yet to join the trade pillar and discussions between the two sides on it are underway.
