Washington: US CommerceSecretary Carlos Gutierrez says India'straditional leadership role in the developing world was needed to advancestalled Doharound of world trade talks and get a 'good agreement.'

"India'sleadership is required to get a WTO agreement that will help the whole worldand will help India aswell," Gutierrez told reporters Friday ahead of a two day visit to New Delhi Feb 13-14. Heleaves here Sunday.

"It will be a quick, but very productive trip," hesaid describing it as a mission with twin goals: to win India's support at a critical moment for Doha and todemonstrate its commitment to building bilateral relations, a proclaimed"top priority" of Bush administration.

"With Indiaemerging as a key player in multilateral discussions, Washingtonlooked to New Delhi's clout in the developingworld to help the World Trade Organisation's Doha round of free trade talks get back ontrack," he said.

"As other developing countries watch India, and they look for cues from India, we'll need to see movement inagriculture, which of course we understand is a very important decision for India,"Gutierrez said. Indiaalso needs to help break deadlocks over freeing up trade in the manufacturingand service sectors, he said.

But Gutierrez would not say whether US itself was willing toshow greater flexibility in the matter of farm subsidies, which developingcountries say give US farmers an unfair market advantage.

"I don't want to be in a position of negotiating withourselves," he said suggesting that US had already put forward a"quiet bold" and most aggressive proposal and wanted tosee reciprocity from the European Union, Japan and other big importers.

Gutierrez said US was not linking Doha logjam to generalisedsystem of preferences (GSP)) even as Washington initiated a review of thisduty-free trade benefit in the case of India and a dozen other countries soonafter the collapse of world trade talks. "It's a separate issue requiringCongressional approval," he said.

Gutierrez, who has visited Indiaseveral times in his previous job as Kellogg Co chief executive, said the $29billion in annual US-India trade that made Indiathe United States'19th biggest trade partner showed the business relationship was not atits full potential.

"As large as it is, it is just getting started,"he said noting that foreign direct investment (FDI) made up only 5 per cent of India's GDP whereas it was as high as 28 percent in the case of Brazil,20 percent in Russia and 16percent in China.

With an investment of $39 billion, US has the largest of FDIin India. Gutierrez said he aimed to promotecooperation in the areas of service trade, high technology and civil nuclear powerunder a landmark deal, which symbolised a very significant part of India-USrelations.

While a lot of work has still to be done, Congressionalapproval for the deal represented a breakthrough.

"We are committed andbelieve the step with the Congress gives us a leeway to move forward," hesaid urging Indiato move forward with the requisite steps like the accord with IAEA for anadditional protocol.

"A lot was going on in India, Gutierrez said. The openskies agreement had added a lot of vibrancy. It was also very much on track inliberalising the retail sector and he hoped to see significant progress in thenear future. But a lot more has to bedone.Opening up was good for a country. India has made so much progressthat it can be proud of. Indiacan grow up even faster if it opens up further," he said.

Asked about his reaction to legislation passed by severalAmerican states against outsourcing, he said Washington was in favour of free and fairtrade that was an important part of the future of the world. But he couldunderstand concerns when jobs are lost in a given state.

"We have toconvince them about its necessity (outsourcing) to attract investment and domore trade as they in turn created jobs,"he said.

Gutierrez will meet with Indian Commerce and IndustryMinister Kamal Nath and other senior government officials and business leaders.

The two sides will discuss ways to promote opportunity andeconomic growth between them, the announcement said. The meetings will includediscussions on enforcing intellectual property rights, reducing red tape for UScompanies trying to do business in India and the United States-IndiaPeaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act signed by President George Bush inDecember 2006.

He will be accompanied by US Under Secretary for InternationalTrade Frank Lavin who led the largest USgovernment business development mission in history to India during Nov-Dec 2006. Themission included 250 American business representatives and state governmentofficials who explored export opportunities to India.

But there are no business leaders in the Gutierrezdelegation.