Markets Wired

As Prepared for Delivery

Minister Sitharaman, thank you for the warm welcome.

This is my third trip to India as Secretary of the Treasury and I have valued the opportunity to meet with you on all these occasions.

The United States has appreciated India’s leadership during its G20 presidency, and we will continue our close cooperation.

The world is looking to the G20 to make progress on key challenges like climate change and pandemics as part of our work to strengthen the global economy and to support developing countries. I am hopeful we can take significant concrete steps forward in our meetings.

I appreciate India’s demonstrated leadership on debt issues as G20 president, including your support for G20 efforts to improve the multilateral debt restructuring process.

I also welcome India’s focus on advancing the evolution of the multilateral development banks, or MDBs.

It is vital that we use meetings like this to strengthen our coalition of shareholders that are working together to press for more ambition and specific reforms with respect to the MDBs’ vision, incentive structures, operational approaches, and financial capacity to better address global challenges.

We estimate that the MDBs as a system could unlock $200 billion over the next decade just from the measures already being implemented or under deliberation as part of this process.

The recently released G20 MDB Experts Group report is one recent useful input to this work, though we must only explore capital increases after the reforms in these areas have progressed further.

We are also proud to have supported Ajay Banga’s candidacy to lead the World Bank. We believe that he is providing the right leadership to deliver on these critical reforms.

It is also important to address the immediate need to boost the Bank’s concessional lending capacity for global challenges and support low-income countries to supplement ongoing efforts. Indian partnership in this effort will be a key to its success.

Beyond our cooperation at the G20, we highly value our bilateral relationship with India.

As illustrated by Prime Minister’s Modi’s recent State Visit to Washington, the United States and India are among the closest partners in the world. And I’ve been proud to help lead our work on that relationship.

The United States is home to the largest Indian diaspora outside of Asia, and it serves as India’s largest export market. Bilateral trade between our two countries reached an all-time high last year, and we expect it to grow further in the years to come.

Our collaboration spans a range of economic issues, including commercial and technological collaboration, strengthening supply chains, and catalyzing the clean energy transition.

In particular, we look forward to working with India on an investment platform to deliver a lower cost of capital and increased private investment to speed India’s energy transition.

I also appreciate India’s focus on finalizing the historic Two-Pillar global tax deal in the Inclusive Framework, and I believe that we are close to reaching agreement.

We had a productive meeting in New Delhi last fall as part of the US-India Economic and Financial Partnership, or EFP, and I look forward to convening the 10th EFP meeting.

Thank you again for the warm welcome. I look forward to our discussion today.

 

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