A meeting of AMCHAM’s ICT Committee with the Commercial Section of the U.S. Embassy was conducted on June 19th. It was attended by Dell, HP, HPE, Intel, IBM and AT&T. The meeting was a closed door session and follow up from the ICT and Cyber Security Committee meeting. Members spoke at length about trade barriers, National Procurement Policy issues by DPIIT on June 4th 2020, Government e-marketplace, Make in India products, preferential market access, WFH mandates issues by DoT and the delay in the implementation of policies such as National Digital Communication Policy.

It was deliberated and discussed that despite of American hardware and semiconductors being one of the key drivers to ensure smooth functioning of business and running of essential services such as healthcare, banking, education, ICT penetration continues to be low in the country. Thereby, it would be important to ensure that the supply chain for ICT products continued to remain functional and resilient. Mr. Gregory Taevs, Deputy Minister Counselor for Commercial Affairs, U.S. Embassy, provided his perspective on the trade barriers between the countries. It was unanimously decided that a compilation of all the issues would be taken up during bilateral talks. A submission from AMCHAM highlighting the issues would be submitted to authorities such as DPIIT, PMO, Ministry of Commerce, GeM and MeitY.