Obama enlists US CEOs' help for jobs recovery

US President Barack Obama said he and 20 company executives made “good progress” during a four and a half hour meeting toward establishing closer cooperation between government and business to accelerate the US economic recovery.

“We focused on jobs and investment, and they feel optimistic that by working together we can get some of that cash off the sidelines,” Obama said as he left the session yesterday, referring to the almost $2 trillion that he said companies have amassed.

The meeting with business leaders, who included UBS Chairman for the Americas Robert Wolf and Honeywell International Chairman David Cote, was part of the administration’s campaign to heal a strained relationship with the business community and to collaborate on ways to boost jobs, with the nation’s unemployment rate at 9.8 per cent.

Held at Blair House, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, the executives and administration officials conferred on issues such as tax overhaul, education, exports, regulation and the budget deficit, as well as ways to encourage businesses to spend and invest. While Obama has held dozens of meetings with business-leaders during his term, attendees said they expected more follow-up from yesterday’s summit, either from the president himself or top aides. Executives said it was critical that the administration continue the dialogue.

“This meeting is not episodic; we think it will be continual,” Motorola Co-CEO Greg Brown said. “We agreed on a number of us engaging on different issues within the administration. It’s not about optics, it’s about delivery and we are all very focused on that.”

Obama is generating more optimism among CEOs after a series of business-friendly overtures, including a deal to extend tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 and efforts to boost exports such as a US-South Korea free-trade agreement and a loosening of controls on some technology sales.

Obama said private companies are crucial to the US climbing out of the worst recession since the Great Depression.