As Defence Minister Rajnath Singh began his official visit to Washington to further boost the comprehensive global strategic partnership between the two nations, India and the US signed two major agreements.
The two date agreements signed on thursday belong to Security of Supplies Arrangement (SOSA) and Memorandum of Agreement regarding Assignment of Liaison Officers.
"Two important documents have been signed in Washington DC as Raksha Mantri Shri @rajnathsingh's visit to the United States begins. Senior defence officials from both sides concluded the Security of Supplies Arrangement, SOSA, and Memorandum of Agreement regarding the Assignment of Liaison Officers," X posted on Y on Friday along with some photographs of the event.
Singh is visiting the US on Thursday for four days.
The US and India have signed a "bilateral, non-binding Security of Supply Arrangement (SOSA)," said a press statement of the US Department of Defense (DoD) on Thursday.
Under this SOSA, the US and India will accord each other priority to meet the other country's requirements for goods and services in support of national defence. The Arrangement will assist both countries in attaining the industrial resources required by each other to minimize unforeseen disruptions in the production line in order to cope with national security requirements.
The SOSA was signed by Dr Vic Ramdass, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Industrial Base Policy, from the US, and Samir Kumar Sinha, Additional Secretary and Director General (Acquisitions), from the Ministry of Defence.
"This Security of Supply Arrangement represents a watershed in US-India Major Defence Partner relationship and will go a long way in encouraging the US-India Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI)," Ramdass said.
"I look forward to visiting the US in the fall to host the next DTTI meeting, in an ongoing commitment to strengthen cooperation between our respective defense industrial bases and work on our special team to move forward on bilateral co-development, co-production, and co-sustainment opportunities," he said.
It provides for the fact that the United States and India shall support each other's priority delivery requests for the procurement of critical national defense resources that come under the Arrangement.
The US will provide India assurances under the US Defence Priorities and Allocations System (DPAS), with program determinations by DoD and rating authorisation by the Department of Commerce (DOC). India, in return, will establish with its industrial base a Government-Industry Code of Conduct under which Indian firms will voluntarily agree to make every reasonable effort to provide the US with priority support.
Now, with a growing global DoD supply chain, SOSAs are essential for the US DoD to increase interoperability with US defense trade partners, rather than solving all the problems. Working groups, communication mechanisms, streamlined DoD processes, and proactive measures that anticipate problems of the supply chain in peacetime, emergencies, and war are some of the useful tools of developing investment strategies of availability to ensure redundancy and security.
India is US 18th SOSA partner. Other SOSA partners of United States are Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom.
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