On October 17th, AMCHAM’s Defense Committee called upon Mr. Giridhar Aramane, Defence Secretary, Ministry of Defence, Government of India and his team comprising of Mr. Dinesh Kumar, Director General (Acquisition), Ministry of Defence, Mr. Anurag Bajpai, Joint Secretary, Defence Industries Production, Ministry of Defence, Mr. Vishwesh Negi, Joint Secretary, International Co-operation, Ministry of Defence, and Col. Shailender Arya, Advisor (IC-II), Ministry of Defence. Mr. Alain Garcia, Chairman – Defense Committee, AMCHAM and Vice President, Global Business Development – India, Boeing Defense, Space & Security, The Boeing Company presented Secretary Aramane with AMCHAM’s report ‘U.S.-India Defence Partnership: Co-Production & Co-Development’ published in September 2023. The U.S. defense industry in India supports over 28,000 direct jobs and gainful employment for an additional 20,000 people. Overall they also support in bringing improvement in quality of life for over 2.6 million people through multiple initiatives. Members had a good interaction with the Defense Secretary and his team regarding pertinent and current issues encompassing the U.S.-India Defence Industrial Co-operation Roadmap, MRO challenges, INDUS-X, wholly owned subsidiary standing, inverted duty structure challenges being faced, etc. It was decided to submit focussed feedback on these points to arrive at a resolution. The Defence Secretary congratulated the good work captured in the report and mentioned his eagerness to look at the next volume since Ministry of Defence was on the speed track to clear more such co-development projects in the near term. He also shared his thoughts on the next U.S.-India 2+2 dialogue and DefExpo 2024, likely to be in first quarter of next year.