The Ministry of Commerce late on 28 September confirmed that Minister Piyush Goyal will lead a delegation to the United States from 29 September to 5 October. The immediate headline is tariff reduction, but for global-mobility teams the real action is in a draft ‘movement of natural persons’ chapter that both sides hope to lock in before the US election cycle dominates legislative calendars. According to officials familiar with the text, the chapter would formalise a fast-track business-visitor category, extend visa validity for intracompany transferees from five to seven years, and pilot a 1 000-slot annual quota for speciality service suppliers in digital‐trade and climate-tech sectors. The framework borrows heavily from the mobility annex in the recently concluded India-UK free-trade agreement, but adds a mutual-recognition clause on professional qualifications—something Indian IT firms have long pushed for. Goyal is scheduled to meet US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Washington on 30 September and again on the margins of the G20 Trade Ministers’ Meeting in Wisconsin. Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) sources say industry will press for a transparent pre-clearance portal so that employers can track quota usage and processing times in real time—a feature modelled on Canada’s global-skills strategy. US multinationals, meanwhile, are lobbying for language that would guarantee minimum work-permit validity in Indian special economic zones. Why it matters: Indian outbound assignments to the US still rely largely on the H-1B and L-1 visa categories, both capped and subject to political headwinds. A separate mobility corridor shielded by a trade agreement could give companies a more predictable pipeline for project-based deployments, while also giving Washington a lever to secure data-localisation commitments from New Delhi. For Indian start-ups eyeing the American market, the seven-year intracompany transfer would align with typical venture-capital exit timelines. The negotiating timetable is tight. Greer told reporters last week that any deal must be signed by early December to allow congressional review before lawmakers break for the holidays. Indian officials say the mobility annex is “90 percent clean”, with remaining hurdles centred on fees and wage-floor safeguards. If those can be resolved in Wisconsin, expect a ministerial announcement in Chicago—where Goyal will meet diaspora tech leaders—before both sides turn to legal scrubbing.
Source: The Economic Times
