A draft copy of the proposed India-US Bilateral Investment Treaty is not ambitious enough to attract American investors to India, feels Washington, which would rather prefer an agreement similar to the ones India has signed with Japan and South Korea. The Barack Obama administration feels that the current form of agreement does not provide robust market access. There are differences over the issue of Japan or Indo-South Korea trade treaties should be the model for the India-US BIT.
Indian government has to make attractive offers for concluding the BIT as the Obama administration has entered its last leg. Last year, India had shared a model text of the proposed treaty (BIT) with the US. The issue had come up for discussion at the US-India Trade Policy Forum (TPF) meeting in Washington last year, and bet over the past year, both sides held formal negotiations on BIT either in person or through video conferencing.
US investments into India and vice-versa are being carried out irrespective of a bilateral BIT. American investments in India amount to $28 billion and Indian investments in the US amount to $18 billion.