NEW DELHI: The Indo-US CEOs forum that is scheduled to meet on January 26 while the US President Barak Obama is here on his three-day India visit will lay emphasis on creating ‘a very conducive atmosphere’ for doing business in India.
The CEOs forum to be co-chaired by Davdi M Cote, chairman and CEO of Honeywell, a $40 billion diversified technology and manufacturing leader and chairman of Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry will specifically speak about retrospective taxation, bureaucratic bottlenecks that could prove to be an impediment in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India programme.
Sources said the primary thrust of the meeting would be to lay out a roadmap where stake holders can do business with ease and discussion centering around how investment could be attracted in India’s manufacturing sector which has been in the de-growth phase because of a variety of reasons including high cost of capital, global slowdown and lack of investor sentiment.
To carry the government of India message ahead of President Obama and his business delegation’s visit to India, Amitabh Kant Secretary DIPP Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday while addressing the business community in Washington at a CII-Embassy of India session on ‘Make in India’ apprised the business community about the key initiatives of Modi government especially ease of doing business; enabling manufacturing through industrial corridors, infrastructure development and smart cities; opening up of FDI in key sectors such as construction, defence, railways, medical devices as well as genuine commitment from the government to usher in growth.
He urged the US industry to take advantage of the vast opportunities in the various sectors identified under ‘Make in India’ to enter India, make for the domestic market and also export. In particular, he stressed that India and the United States “must partner on merit and innovation”.
President Obama is expected to land in India with several CEOs from Fortune 500 companies that are keen to do business in India. These CEOs include Harold Terry Mcgraw of Mcgraw Hill Financial, Indira Nooyi of Pepsico and Ajay Banga president and CEO of Master Card among others.
Meanwhile in a CEOs survey conducted by industry chamber Assocham found that 72% of the 118 corporate leaders said that they expect President Obama to encourage Prime Minister Modi to allow more market access and remove the road blocks for the American firms which are keen on participating in a big way in some of the flagship programmes of the Indian government, such as Make in India, Smart Cities, sanitation (Swachch Bharat) and the focus on renewable energy, especially solar energy.
American conglomerates like CISCO, IBM, Lockheed Martin and Dell with enviable experience in developing smart cities are keen to participate in the smart cities programme that has been ushered by the government where Ajmer, Visakhapatnam and Allahabad could be the first three cities to be developed as smart cities.