Senior officials from India’s Ministry of Finance and the U.S. Department of Treasury met in New Delhi on August 3, 2023, on the line of the 9th ministerial meeting of the Indian-U.S. Economic and Financial Partnership (EFP) held in November of 2022.

The Indian delegation was led by Chief Economic Adviser, Dr. V. Anantha Nageswaran and the U.S. delegation was led by Assistant Secretary for International Finance Mr. Brent Neiman. Indian and U.S. officials discussed a range of economic and financial issues that included the economic outlook in both countries, recent developments in the area of cross-border payments that included discussion about the G20 Cross-Border Payments Roadmap, India’s United Payments Interface (UPI) payments platform, and the Federal Reserve’s implementation of the FedNow payments system.

Importance of meeting:

The OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) to conclude work on the Multilateral Convention during the first half of 2023.

Base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) refers to tax planning strategies that exploit gaps and mismatches in tax rules to make profits ‘disappear’ for tax purposes or to shift profits to locations where there is little or no real activity but the taxes are low, resulting in little or no overall corporate tax being paid.

The completion of the GloBE Implementation Framework under and call on member countries and the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS to conclude the negotiations on the Subject to Tax Rule (STTR).

India and the United States make note of the progress made under the Inter-Governmental Agreement pursuant to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) with respect to sharing of financial account information. The two sides will continue to engage in discussions on full reciprocal arrangement on FATCA.

Both countries underscore their commitment towards exploring promising avenues of mutual collaboration, including India’s maiden IFSC in GIFT City, Gujarat, during the 11th U.S.-India Financial Regulatory Dialogue to be held in the first half of 2023.

The IFSCA is a unified authority for the development and regulation of financial products, financial services and financial institutions in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in India. At present, the GIFT IFSC is the maiden international financial services centre in India. Prior to the establishment of IFSCA, the domestic financial regulators, namely, RBI, SEBI, PFRDA and IRDAI regulated the business in IFSC.
The International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) was established on April 27, 2020 under the International Financial Services Centres Authority Act, 2019. It is headquartered at GIFT City, Gandhinagar in Gujarat.

The Treasury Department continues to provide technical support to India’s National Infrastructure and Investment Fund (NIIF).