Afreen Akhter, Deputy Assistant Secretary within the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs (SCA), advised this at a information convention organised by the Washington Foreign Press Center.

“With India, which of course is our biggest partner in South Asia, we launched in January of last year the US-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology. We call this iCET,” Akhter mentioned.

The purpose is to construct a resilient semiconductor provide chain, elevate area cooperation, and associate on the subsequent technology of telecommunications – so, once more, a extremely formidable initiative to construct cooperation on crucial and rising applied sciences with India, she mentioned on Wednesday.

The US can be advancing regional resilience to transnational threats.

“We want to talk about it in terms of our work on infrastructure or – and climate change and responding to pandemics. So under the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, which is another initiative we announced recently, we’re working with India to deploy multi-billion-dollar climate infrastructure and a new fund that will include a USD 500 million investment contribution from our Development Finance Corporation,” she said.

“This will also include 40,000 public e-buses through an innovative payment secured – security mechanism financed by the Government of India, the United States, and our partners of philanthropy,” Akhter mentioned.

“And then finally, we also launched the Climate Action Champions Work in South Asia, which is intended to invest in the next generation of climate leaders to support climate advocacy and respond to their needs throughout the region. So as you can see, we’re deeply engaged with all of our partners across the Indo-Pacific and East Asia and South Asia,” she mentioned.

Akhter mentioned the US and India have deepened a really broad and multifaceted defence partnership by means of joint workout routines, strengthened defence industrial cooperation, and the annual 2 2 Ministerial Dialogue.

“We are really focused on building out that defence relationship. It’s one of the key features of our Indo-Pacific strategy,” she mentioned.

The US is making big investments all through South Asia, she mentioned.

“So last fall, the United States and India’s Adani Group announced a half-billion-dollar investment in the Port of Colombo in Sri Lanka. This investment is intended to expand the capacity of the port, which is already operating at like 90 per cent capacity and really enable Sri Lanka to become an even bigger economic player in the region as it sits in this prime shipping route,” Akhter said.

“To bolster regional security, we’re always engaging with our South Asian partners and really looking to build out those security relationships in the region. And we’re doing that through a variety of ways, but one way we’re doing it is, of course, providing our partners with new capabilities,” she said.

In the Maldives, the US recently announced the delivery of four new patrol boats to help them monitor their Exclusive Economic Zones. It has provided three Coast Guard cutters to Sri Lanka, she said.