Ahead of the India-US CEO Forum meeting tomorrow, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today held wide ranging discussions with top industry leaders on issues such as energy and manufacturing with a view to boosting economic ties with America.
Sitharaman said the Indian business leaders briefed her about the business-to-business meetings that they have had with their US partners.
"Lot of areas have been specifically looked into for greater cooperation between India and the US commercial matters whether you talk about energy and manufacturing of certain items," she told reporters after the meeting.
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The other issues which come up for deliberations include the US participation in smart cities, medical devices manufacturing and its technology and setting up of civil nuclear power generation centres, she added.
"So on all this, there are various groups chaired by Indian business leader and his counterpart from the US. They have had these discussions prior to the S&CD," the minister said.
About 10 CEOs attended the meeting including Cyrus Mistry, Chairman, Tata Sons; Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal; ICICI Bank MD & CEO Chanda Kochhar; HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh and Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra.
The day-long second strategic and commercial dialogue (S&CD) between India and the US will begin tomorrow. As part of that top CEO's from India and the US would deliberate on ways to enhance economic cooperation.
Mistry will co-chair from the Indian side and Dave Cote, Chairman, Honeywell from the US side.
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The India-US Strategic and Commercial Dialogue (S&CD) forum was reconstituted in December 2014. It has met twice during the year 2015, in Delhi and Washington.
Mistry will co-chair the forum from the Indian side tomorrow while Dave Cote, CEO, Honeywell will co-chair from the US side.
A comprehensive recommendation was submitted by the forum in January, 2015 during the first meeting of the reconstituted CEO Forum.
In the meeting held in September, 2015 it reviewed the action taken in line with the recommendations.
In the meeting to be held tomorrow, the forum will discuss the status of progress made on these recommendations, Commerce Ministry said.
"The Forum is also working on a fresh set of recommendations which would be submitted before the two governments in the meeting on August 30, 2016," it said.
