US Secretary for Commerce Gina Raimondo and Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for closer strategic cooperation on semiconductors. Both sides will explore both near-term and long-term strategic opportunities in semiconductors.

"Both the United States and India are implementing semiconductor incentive programs, and we discussed how we could coordinate those investments, which is in both of our interests and ensure the best possible outcome for both of our countries," said Raimondo.

"We would like to see India achieve its aspiration to play a larger role in the electronic supply chain. And to that end, the MOU, memorandum of understanding, that I am signing on this trip around semiconductors is designed to help achieve that goal", she added.

Speaking during a press conference, Raimondo said that the MoU will pave the way for greater collaboration and coordination between the US Chips Act and India's SEMICON program. India and the US will coordinate and collaborate on the implementation of their respective programs and the manner in which incentives are given to companies.

"We would like to prevent over-subsidising certain areas or subsidising such that there’s a glut of certain kinds of chips", the US Secretary for Commerce said.

As part of this MoU, both nations will together map the chips supply chain and assess the demand picture and how much supply of chips is needed. The MoU is aimed at making the semiconductor supply chains more resilient.

No specific firms have made commitments yet as part of this proposed MoU, but Raimondo has earlier said that the world cannot be overly dependent on Taiwan which is providing 93 percent of the world's chips. She also urged India to reduce the tariffs on components used in semiconductor manufacturing.

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(Edited by : Sangam Singh)

First Published:Mar 10, 2023 8:01 AM IST