Yesterday Mr Chidambaram had a 30-minute meeting with Mr. Rubert Messbacher, US secretary of Commerce , who he invited to visit India. Today the minister will have lunch with Ms Carla Hills, US trade representative. The expectation is that the US imposed deadline of November 1991, under the Special 301 law, for India to comply with International Patent and copyright laws will be extended till February 1992, if not an Indian Official who declined to be quoted that the two sides from quoted, that the two sides have resolved their differences over copyrights and trademark sights. Only patents-- in food, chemicals and pharmaceuticals - remain a problem area Mr Chidambaram said at one meeting that Ms Hills was of the view that retaliation was neither desirable nor inevitable.
The government had set a deadline. December 31 this year by which to show early winds about bringing in about foreign investments. Some major investments were already on the way. From Germany and very soon from the United States he said.
He admitted that deregulation so far of trade and industry was incomplete. But "within three to five years" he was determined to submit two goals. First, all capital goods would come under an open general license for import because the rupee will become a convertible currency.