PM Modi begins breakfast meeting with CEOs of top US firms in New York

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has begun a breakfast meeting with CEOs of 11 top US companies here on Monday morning, during which he is expected to hard sell India as the best investment destination in Asia.

According to television reports, among the eleven CEOs attending the breakfast meeting with the Prime Minister are Google's Larry Page; David M Rubenstein of The Carlyle Group; Michael L Corbat, CEO of Citigroup; Doug Oberhelman of Caterpillar; Cargill President and CEO David W MacLennan; Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo; Kenneth C Frazier of Merck; MasterCard President and CEO Ajaypal Singh Banga, AES Corporation CEO Andres Gluski, Charles R. Kaye of Warburg Pincus and Micheal Ball of Hospira - a US-based global pharmaceutical company.

Following this breakfast meeting, the Prime Minister is scheduled to meet CEOs of six other major companies in a one-to-one interaction. They include W. James (Jim) McNerney Jr, CEO of Boeing; Laurence D. Fink, CEO of American multinational investment management firm Black Rock; Virginia Rometty CEO of IBM; Jeffrey R. Immelt,CEO of General Electric; Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, and Henry Kravis, CEO of American private equity fund Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co (KKR).

These meetings with the 17 CEOs is expected to last about two hours.

This meetings are a part of Prime Minister Modi's plans to increase the share of India's manufacturing sector to 25 per cent of the GDP from 15 per cent currently. He is expected to assure the CEOs of a red carpet welcome minus the red tape.

Later in the day, he will meet the Clintons, former president Bill Clinton and his wife and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Following which he departs for Washington in the afternoon to meet U.S. President Barrack Obama.