NEW YORK: The Manhattan-India Investment Round Table is the brainchild of The United States-India Business Council (USIBC) and the United States Council for International Business (USCIB). It was inaugurated at a dinner in Manhattan, in collaboration with the Asia Society and the support of the Indian consulate general in New York. Among those present were Consul General Pramathesh Rath, Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Jon M. Huntsman, USCIB chairman Dean R. O'Hare, USCIB president Thomas Niles, Asia Society president Nicholas Platt and USIBC chairman Rajat Gupta. The dinner, attended by some 150 guests, also recognised the role played by O'Hare in promoting India-U.S. business relations, and extended an undisclosed grant to non-profit Digital Partners, which seeks to "utilise the digital economy to empower the poor". Michael Clark, executive director of USIBC, told IANS: "This forum is basically for Indian CEOs looking to attract investments from the U.S. -- a forum where they can meet with potential investors and bankers." He said the roundtable would also eventually extend to the west coast. In the keynote address, Huntsman said India has been attracting only modest levels of foreign investment "because of the choices made in the past". But now, there was some "exciting potential" for the country, particularly in the services sector. He said the average annual growth rate of India's services sector exports had been over 20 percent during the past five years, which was much higher than the global average of 2.5 percent. "Today American citizens find their personal medical records, financial history, business transactions, technical support, loan applications and much more - all these done and provided by Indians." He said this was an important change "that may create 2.8 million new jobs in India". He said for instance Hewlett-Packard has over 3,300 software engineers in India. "The Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, gives its top quality ranking to only 48 software companies in the world. Nearly, two-thirds of them are now based in India." Consul General Rath told guests that even though arriving at a consensus in India was slow, they were, nevertheless, stable and steady. The country, he said, had made creditable progress in areas such as reduction of poverty levels, external trade and foreign exchange reserves, and added that these were achieved by maintaining a sound macro economic environment. On the future course of reforms, he said some legislative measures were on the anvil such as the communications Convergence Bill, Electricity Bill, Competition Bill and the Fiscal Responsibilities Bill. Rath said foreign direct investment (FDI) into India had increased sharply by 40 percent last year despite the downturn in the global economy. "This shows that FDI India is beginning to take off."
Source: IANS