US VP Vance India Visit: IT Minister Expects Positive Outcomes

Manesar, Apr 18 (PTI) Ahead of US Vice President JD Vance's visit to India next week, Minister for Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday expressed optimism about "positive outcome" from the visit.

Vaishnaw cited pragmatic approach and continued engagement on both sides, and asserted that India has emerged as a trusted hub in electronics manufacturing.

"There will be very positive outcome is what I can say with a good level of confidence, because we have approached this thing in a very pragmatic way, and very agile way, and we have continuously engaged," Vaishnaw said when asked what outcomes he expects given the backdrop of Vance's upcoming visit, and India and US' economic and trade engagements.

"Over a period of time, India has emerged as a very trusted country, because the way Prime Minister Narendra Modi conducted foreign policy, that trust has got generated about our country today, and that is going to be a big and important factor for all of us," Vaishnaw said.

On whether there are any apprehensions about electronics products being dumped in the country from China given the intense trade and tariff war playing out, the minister said "more or less our country is prepared for any situation" but added that the commerce ministry would be the nodal authority to respond to such a query.

On whether China's export curbs on critical rare earth minerals would have any implication for Indian component manufacturing, the minister said Indian industry believes that they will be able to work out alternatives.

"Whatever we have had discussions with the industry so far, the industry feels that they will be able to figure out alternatives to this, because the entire world has been preparing for diversifying value chains since COVID struck," the Minister said. One of the biggest learnings from the pandemic for the industry was the need for building diverse supply chains. "So the world has been working in that direction," Vaishnaw said.

The minister was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an VVDN Technologies' event in Manesar.