India and the US have agreed to facilitate exchanges on technical textiles between centres of excellence in India and US universities, a joint statement issued at the end of first-ever India-US Strategic and Commercial Dialogue (S&CD) said.

Addressing a joint press conference, India’s commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, “A small beginning has also been made on technical textiles, where the United States has agreed to facilitate exchanges between India’s Centre of Excellence and US universities. We also agreed on collaborating on standards in these areas.”

India and the US will encourage industry to participate in trade exhibitions focused on technical textiles in their respective countries. Further, both sides agreed to consider collaborating on standards in this area, and to address concerns regarding barriers to technical textile exports in the relevant work stream, the joint statement said.

Emphasizing the importance of building commercial ties to drive the India-US partnership forward, both countries applauded the focus on innovation and entrepreneurship as an area for cooperation. They agreed to facilitate an innovation forum in 2016—a platform for US and Indian entrepreneurs to share best practices in promoting a culture of innovation and the creation of sister innovation hubs.

In addition, both sides launched a joint work stream on Ease of Doing Business. They agreed to continue exchanges of information and best practices on cross-border trade, and to continue commercial law-related initiatives on issues like insolvency and contract enforcement, and transparency.

At S&CD, both sides agreed on a private sector-led collaboration between the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to maintain and update a portal containing standards information for the use of industry, including small- and medium-sized enterprises.