PM Modi meets IBM CEO Virginia Romnetty in New York

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the CEO of IBM, Virginia Romnetty, here on Monday.

Prime Minister also had similar meetings with Boeing CEO James McNerney and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co CEO Henry Kravis and Laurence D. Fink, CEO of the American multinational investment management firm Blackrock.

IBM India Private Limited is the Indian subsidiary of IBM. It has facilities in Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Gurgaon, Noida, Chandigarh, Indore, Bhubaneshwar, Coimbatore, Visakhapatnam and Hyderabad.

Between 2003 and 2007, IBM's head count in India has grown by almost 800 percent, from 9,000 in 2003 to nearly 74,000 in 2007. Since 2006, IBM has been the multinational with the largest number of employees in India. IBM is very secretive about the geographic distribution of its employees, and it likely has more employees here than in the U.S.

When India was liberalized in 1991, relaxing FDI norms. IBM re-entered the Indian shores in 1992 with a Tata joint-venture, named Tata Information Systems Ltd. Its business interest in India was still focused on product sales.

Earlier in the morning, Prime Minister held a breakfast meeting with CEOs of 11 top US companies, during which he is believed to have pushed India's case as the best investment destination in Asia.

Among the eleven CEOs whom the Prime Minister had met were 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.

These 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.

Prime Minister Modi 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.