Terming India as the largest buying and selling associate, US Treasury Secretary Janet L Yellen on Saturday pitched for advancing an strategy referred to as “friendshoring” to bolster the resilience of provide chains.

As President Biden has mentioned, India is an indispensable associate to the United States, Yellen mentioned whereas addressing a roundtable with US and Indian tech enterprise leaders on the sidelines of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting right here.

“The US is India’s biggest trading partner. In 2021, our bilateral trade was over USD 150 billion. Our people-to-people ties affirm the closeness of our relationship. 200,000 Indians are studying in America and enriching our schools and universities. We depend on each other on a daily basis: Indians use WhatsApp to communicate and many American companies rely on Infosys to operate,” she mentioned.

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The roundtable was attended by high tech honchos, together with Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani, IBM India managing director Sandip Patel, Intel India nation head Nivruti Rai, Foxconn India Country Head Josh Foulger and Wipro chairman Rishad Premji.

“As we look towards the future, I am eager to deepen our ties in the technology sector. The United States is advancing an approach called “friendshoring” to bolster the resilience of our supply chains. We are doing this by strengthening integration with our many trusted trading partners – including India. We are seeing progress; as an example, technology companies like Apple and Google have expanded their phone production in India,” she mentioned.

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The US in its new ‘friendshoring’ strategy is diversifying away from nations that current geopolitical and safety dangers to our provide chain. Friendshoring strategy entails partnering with growing nations to develop native industries and join them to the worldwide provide chain.

Through the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, or PGII, she mentioned, the US is investing in digital applied sciences that may drive inclusive, resilient development in India.

Under PGII, she mentioned, the United States has introduced investments in agri-tech to allow climate-smart agricultural manufacturing, and in digital funds programs for microentrepreneurs.

These stand alongside investments in renewable power, well being, and different infrastructure sectors in India, she mentioned, including, the United States goals to mobilise USD 200 billion by 2027 for PGII, and stay up for partnering with India to proceed investing in its future.

During the roundtable, Nilekani mentioned Infosys has opened new centres in six totally different American states in the previous couple of yr and employed 25,000 staff there within the final six years.

“We have focused heavily on localisation in the US. Total global workforce is 3,30,000. We have built a 160,000 square feet world class training centre in Indianapolis. We hired 7,000 fresh graduates this year. Our aim is to pick young, talented people, including from community colleges, and invest in their training,” he mentioned.

Infosys runs India’s tax programs, he mentioned, including, the back-end of all the direct and oblique tax system is run by the corporate.

India file 79 million earnings tax returns, refunds occur in a matter of days all in a paperless method.