Envoy urges US firms to build partnership with India

Asking the US corporate sector to build a lasting partnership with India in high technology including the defence sector, new Indian envoy Meera Shankar has said that New Delhi is looking at optimising its ability to procure the best equipment from anywhere in the world.

"We hope that the American companies who are at the forefront of technical development in this field will take advantage of the opportunity to build partnerships in a way which provides mutual benefits and also helps to build India's own capability," Shankar said at a reception hosted in her honour by the US India Business Council.

India is looking at developing relationships with the US and expanding them in areas of high technology, including defence, she said in her address to the American corporate sector which too is keen to strengthen business ties with India.

"This is something new because the Indian government has adopted a new policy towards defence procurement where we look at optimising our ability to procure the best equipment from anywhere in the world through international competitive bidding and secondly to also develop longer term partnership which go beyond merely sale and purchase of equipment," the new Indian Ambassador said.

Observing that India's defence sector has been opened for Indian private companies, but also for foreign firms as well with a ceiling of 26 per cent, the Ambassador urged the US companies to come forward and take benefit of this opportunity offered by India.

"If ever there was a time to raise the US-India profile, this is our moment," said Ron Somers, USIBC president welcoming the new Indian Ambassador a day after she presented her credentials to US President Barack Obama.

"The astonishing electoral outcome in India provides a rare opportunity for USIBC - as the premier business advocacy association promoting deeper US-India ties - to awaken the Obama Administration and India to the absolute excitement which was so perfectly expressed last week by the people of India," he said, referring to the UPA win in the polls.

With a new government in India now in formation, and the Obama administration presently staffing key posts that will shape US-India engagement for the long future, "our companies have much at stake to make certain that momentum is regained, our trajectory is pointed ever-upward, and our countries are united against petty backsliding and protectionism," Somers said.