Keen to see greater presence of Boeing in India: Piyush Goyal

NEW DELHI: Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday said he wants to see a greater presence of US-based Boeing in India as the American firm has recently received a large order of planes from Tata Group-owned Air India.

In February, in one of the largest aircraft orders by an airline, Air India announced it will buy 470 narrow-body and wide-body planes from Airbus and Boeing, with the total deal value estimated to be worth $80 billion (over Rs 6.40 lakh crore).

Goyal also said the India-US bilateral trade is increasing at a healthy rate and both the sides are looking at expanding the trade four-fold so that “we can touch $500 billion target by 2030”. By 2030, India is looking at increasing their goods and services exports to $2 trillion.

“Boeing has received a very large order from the Tata’s and I am given to understand that similar sized orders are in the pipeline... I want to see greater presence of Boeing in India, we would love to see you expand your local supply chains...and have more MRO (maintenance, repair and operations) activity here, which will serve the entire region,” Goyal said here while addressing a function on India-US partnership.

He expressed confidence that many more such large corporations from the US would work closely with Indian firms. He added that huge opportunities are there to enhance cooperation in sectors such as defence, pharma, textiles, engineering, auto components, agri products, electricals. “Alphonso mangoes are also going in the US in a big way,” Goyal said. Speaking at the function, Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy here Patricia Lacina expressed hope that the US companies will partner more with Indian firms on innovative and emerging technologies.

“This year, Indian tourists in the US are expected to exceed the pre-COVID levels and with Air India making its single largest order of planes from Boeing in February and launch of new airlines and airports in India, I think we can expect many more Americans to be visiting India in the years to come,” she said.

This year, “we also expect to exceed our” last year’s record number of Indian students studying in the US, she said. The commerce minister also released a report of AMCHEM India-KPMG titled -The India edge - US industries catalysing the growth trajectory.