India slashes US lobbying; American efforts on upswing

NEWDELHI/WASHINGTON: SEVERAL USBASED ENTITIES, INCLUDING BOEING AND SOME INDUSTRY GROUPINGS, HAVE STEPPED UP THEIR LOBBYING ON INDIARELATED ISSUES

The Indian government seems to have drastically cut down its lobbying amongst US lawmakers as payments made to its registered lobby firm have dipped to the lowest in more than seven years.

On the other hand, several US-based entities including corporates like Boeing as also some industry groupings — Alliance for Fair Trade with India (AFTI) and Chamber of Commerce of the USA — have stepped up their lobbying with the American lawmakers on India-related issues, according to their latest lobby disclosure reports.

The ‘lobbying issues’ covered by the US Chamber of Commerce included “promotion of US-India defence technology and partnership encouraging US and India to take actions that are necessary to enhance defence relations”, as also “nomination of Kenneth Ian Juster to be Ambassador to India”.

While AFTI lobbied on “issues relating to difficulties the US businesses are having doing business in India”, the “specific lobbying issues” for Boeing include broader topics like “US-India relations” and “India trade issues”.

According to the latest lobbying disclosure report filed by BGR Government Affairs, which lobbies in the US on behalf of India, it was paid less than $5,000 (about ₹3.25 lakh) as “income relating to lobbying activities” for the September quarter.

This included “all payments to the registrant (BGR) by any other entity for lobbying activities on behalf of the client (Republic of India),” says the disclosure report dated October 20 filed with the US Senate and the US house of representatives.

This is the lowest lobbying ‘income’ received by the firm from the Indian government since April-June period of 2010, the last quarter when the figure was below $5,000.