Friday, September 2 2005 20:38 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: The United States' move to remove three Indian space facilities from its restricted entities list would allow New Delhi to procure high-end commercial technologies at lower costs, a top Indian space department official said.

The US Department of Commerce earlier this week removed from the blacklist for US exporters, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network here, the ISRO Inertial Systems Unit, Thiruvananthapuram, and the Space Applications Center, Ahmedabad, and three Indian nuclear facilities.

The Washington's move is being seen as a step towards increasing the Indo-US high-technology trade; it's expected to reduce the number of license applications for exports and re-exports to India and increase high-technology trade between the two countries.

"It's a positive move", said Chairman of ISRO headquartered in Bangalore, Dr. G Madhavan Nair, told sources.

"It's expected to improve high technology commercial trade".

Nair, also Secretary in the Department of Space, said the move would enable ISRO to buy some of the electronic items needed in the areas of space applications, command and tracking networks.

According to him, the high-end commercial technologies market in the US is 'favorable' in terms of pricing and technologies.

Price of US components are believed to be lower by a quarter, according to sources. ISRO has in recent years been tapping non-US sources in Europe and Japan, when some of its facilities were on the blacklist.

Asked about the impact on ISRO during the period when some of its facilities were on the blacklist, Nair said, "We are living in spite of that".

Meanwhile, Vikram Sarabhai Space Center and Liquid Propulsion Systems Center at Bangalore and Thiruvanathapuram, and the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota continue to be on the entity list.