Indian Industry Set To Have Wide Ranging Discussions With Us Team

THE INDIAN apex chambers have organised extensive discussions with the visiting US business delegation during President Clinton's visit in India with the objective of giving a big push to the process of wider Indo-US collaboration in the private sector.

FICCI is organising on March 23 eight roundtables here which will cover all the major areas including oil & gas, intellectual property rights, information technology & communications, chemicals, broadcasting & entertainment, trade in services, and trade and investment. About twenty representatives will be taking part in the discussions from each side and in the cases of a few areas, the number of participants will be larger.

 

As regards the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), it will organise a conference on 'Indo-US Trade and Investment - An Agenda for Action' on Thursday itself here to be addressed by US commerce secretary William Daley.

The conference will be attended by senior representatives of the US businessmen who are a part of President Clinton's delegation as also the separate delegation led by the Secretary, US department of commerce.

External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh will be addressing the luncheon meeting while commerce and industry minister Murasoli Maran will be the guest of honour at the CII conference.

Though President Clinton himself is addressing the CII sponsored business meeting in Hyderabad on Friday and the FICCI sponsored meeting in Mumbai the same evening, the Indian industry people are giving special stress on this wide ranging interaction between the industry representatives of the two countries on Thursday. While, the importance of information technology and telecommunications to the US investors is well recognised, what is of special importance of the coming meet is the US delegation's special interest in agro related activities and in health care industry.

What has further straightened the hands of the Indian industry in getting a good deal from the US side is the increasing influence of the immigrant Indian community in the US industry.

The Indians have made a name for themselves not only in information technology but also in other frontier technology areas like bio engineering and the large presence of the non-resident Indians in the US delegation is the manifestation of the importance that the US administration gives to the role of the Indian community in USA.

The Indian industry people will impress on the American side this particular aspect and in that context, the issue of liberalisation of travel and job facilities for Indian experts will come up. While at political level, President Clinton is expected to reiterate the US position on linking trade expansion with labour standard, the Indian industry will point out to the US businessmen that the US position on this issue will only hurt the Indian industry. In fact many US business leaders are not in agreement with the official US position and this divergence may come up at the discussions here at the round table on trade issues.

The US administration is very particular about the pace of the reforms in the states. In fact, the success of the reforms depends on the attitude of the state governments in pushing the reforms process at ground level. President Clinton in fact has made this position clear by addressing the meetings of the chambers only outside Delhi - one at Hyderabad and the other at Mumbai.

The US investors want to disperse their investments but till now, the geographic distribution of investment in India indicates a heavy concentration of US companies around the major cosmopolitan areas of Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Other states like Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Gujarat are also attracting investment. However major portions of north, central and east India continue to have little or no US investment. US investment in Orissa is based on the construction of a single large power project though the state offers an excellent investment climate, according to the US officials.