US pushes India to reform financial laws

India's continued growth will depend on reforms to its overburdened finance sector, the U.S. secretary of the treasury told India's finance minister at a meeting in Washington, receiving a pro forma pledge to "deepen efforts" on that score in reply.

India has outgrown its financial system and its future growth will depend on the success of its next wave of reforms, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Monday at a conference on the US-India Economic and Financial Partnership, according to the Indian Express.

“I think the Indian economy has got a huge need for infrastructure financing, capital financing for running business. The success of the Indian economy would depend on the substantial expansion on the success of the next wave of financial reforms,” IE quoted Geithner as saying.

For his part, Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee kept mum on possible reforms to India's insurance sector, but noted that talks were underway to loosen rules on foreign direct investment in retail and defense, the paper said.

While Indian papers and news agencies like Reuters focused on the (positive) Indian pledge Tuesday "to deepen efforts to open up India's financial, retail, manufacturing and infrastructure sectors to competition," The New York Times headline probably got it right with its headline: US-India talks yield little for trade."