M A I N   N E W S

Business to overtake politics
With the largest business delegation ever to accompany a US President, trade will dominate visit
Sanjeev Sharma
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 2
The enthusiasm in American business circles about President Barack Obama’s India visit can be gauged from the fact that the business delegation from the US India Business Council (USIBC) will be the largest and the most diverse ever to travel to a foreign country in US history.

Ron Somers, president, US India Business Council, told The Tribune, “Companies that have never travelled to India will be accompanying the USIBC on the largest-ever US business executive mission to venture to a foreign country. This awakening of awareness about India will spawn business relationships, collaborations, and joint ventures. future growth is linked to doing business with India.”

Two-way trade between the USA and India is $50 billion in 2010, says USIBC. This was half this amount only 5 years ago. Two-way US-China trade is 10 times this amount - at $500 billion.

The high point of the business leg of the visit will be his address at the US - India Business & Entrepreneurship Summit on November 6 in Mumbai to captains of industry. The summit will be addressed by FM, Pranab Mukherjee, US secretary of commerce, Gary Locke and Terry McGraw, chairman, USIBC and CEO, McGraw-Hill Companies, which, after the USA, has its second largest employee population in India.

Rajan Bharti Mittal, president, FICCI, states, “Both nations have moved into a new orbit of engagement and as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton mentioned some time ago, we are now a strategic partner with limitless opportunities for bilateral cooperation. Since we are strategic partners Indian defence and research institutions should be removed from the entities list of the US and not be restricted from any collaboration with US companies. It is also a matter of concern that why a strategic partner like India attracts the highest number of technology denial provisions from the US.”