Washington, DC
June 1, 2005

Allan Hubbard, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council (NEC) and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission of India met Wednesday, June 1, 2005, to launch a reinvigorated U.S.-India Economic Dialogue. Ambassador of India Ronen Sen and Acting Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, Anthony Wayne, who serves as the U.S. Executive Secretary of the Economic Dialogue, also participated in the meeting. NEC Director Hubbard and Deputy Chairman Ahluwalia, who chair the Dialogue, agreed that they should focus on making progress on key issues that will promote bilateral trade and investment. They also agreed to continue to provide close coordination on the work done by the four tracks of the Economic Dialogue (Trade, Commerce, Finance, and Environment), and welcomed the inauguration of the Energy Dialogue chaired by Deputy Chairman Ahluwalia and Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. They also agreed to explore adding an expanded Information and communications technology component to the dialogue and to seek ways to involve senior members of the US and Indian business communities to provide private sector input to the government-to-government discussions.