US business, policymakers keen to engage with India: Survey

American businesses and policy- makers are keen to engage with India as they see enormous potential in the country's economy backed by the execution capabilities of the Narendra Modi-led Government, according to a survey done by industry body Assocham in the US.
Prime Minister Modi is currently on his maiden visit to the US during which he will address the UN General Assembly, hold talks with President Barack Obama and meet top American corporate honchos besides a series of other engagements.
"Yes, there are issues like bilateral investment treaty, intellectual property rights, wanting India to open its retail sector for the foreign direct investment and it's tough position in the WTO talks on the issue of farmers' security vis-a-vis the trade facilitation, yet American corporations see big opportunity in the Indian economy ready to tread fast once again," the survey pointed out.

"While the Obama Administration seems to be really hopeful of taking the US relationship to the next scale, such a thinking is feeding into America Inc with top of the line CEOs making definitive opinion about execution capabilities of the Modi-led government," it said.
The survey is based on the previews of the Prime Minister Modi's engagements with the top American leaders besides President Barack Obama.
Underlining the importance of the Indo-US relationship, Assocham President Rana Kapoor said: "India's new leadership is gaining respect among major powers of the world both in the neighbourhood and far-off. The kind of enthusiasm and expectations seen in the US about Modi's visit is rare".

Kapoor said the chamber had done a similar survey among the corporates leaders in India and an overwhelming majority of them expected a big success from the Modi's visit to the US both at the bilateral level with the US and also in his multi- lateral engagement at the UN General Assembly.

Modi's approach of getting to the basics and engaging with even the most difficult issues with an open mind is being talked about among the influential Americans whom the Assocham research team interacted with in New York, Washington and established contacts in the Silicon Valley. A strong position of the BJP in Parliament is also seen as a big positive.

"While there is some amount of restlessness, the America Inc and others are willing to give good amount of time to the Modi Government since there an appreciation that India cannot be expected to function like China as the democratic values require debates among stakeholders.
"Besides, there is a federal structure which requires continuous engagement with states some of whom have very powerful political leaders like in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal," noted the survey.
The possible areas for new and scaled up cooperation have been listed as defence and infrastructure. Education is also a key area of cooperation where the US would like India to liberalise its policies.