Ahead of President Barack Obama's maiden visit to India, Corporate America made their five-point wish list public which they say is key for advancing the economic relationship between the world's largest free-market democracies.
The five-point list seeks removal of barriers to high technology trade; recommends interventions to 'grow' agriculture; seeks infrastructure collaborations, including mobilization of new capital markets to fund India's enormous urbanization requirements.
It also calls for educational collaborations - including vocational training, research and K-12 schooling; and proposes a first-of-its kind Free Trade Agreement to unleash the synergies that American and Indian industry so uniquely share - innovation and knowledge.
"It is high time we begin treating one another as genuine partners - both in terms of our strategic relationship - in defense, security, and in space, as well as in our very special knowledge partnership," USIBC president Ron Somers said before leaving for India last evening.
The White House too had made clear that the economic dimension of Indo-US relationship would be top on the agenda of President Obama when he visits India later this week.
"Business is leading the way as it should, as it always has done in pioneering the contours and pushing the envelope of this unique partnership," Somers said.
"Look back to our recent history when we collaborated to address Y2K, to when our sound business advocacy helped lift sanctions in 1998, to our shared vigilance resisting closed borders and protectionism, to our campaign to achieve US-India civil nuclear cooperation.
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Our aim here is to set an agenda that is forward thinking, that looks well into the coming decade. If we set our sights high, there is no doubt that, as partners, the United States and India can shape the economic destiny of the 21st Century," he said.
USIBC is mounting the largest executive mission of US business leaders ever to embark from the US to attend November 6 business summit which it is organizing in Mumbai.
More than 200 business leaders, including those from Fortune 200 to small and medium enterprises, are expected to attend the meeting which would be addressed by Obama.
USIBC's Chairman, Terry McGraw - who is also Chairman and CEO of The McGraw Hill Companies, will lead the executive mission onwards to New Delhi, where business leaders would confer with Confederation of Indian Industry and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
President's visit to India will be historic. It is timely; it will spur interest and attract positive attention to the uniqueness of our relationship, and will achieve successes that will fundamentally alter - in a positive way - how we cooperate commercially and strategically as partners going forward," Somers said.
With an eye on India's large education sector, the American business have also asked industry in the US and India to press for the forward movement of the Foreign Education Bill, currently in the Indian parliament.
"With 35 per cent of India's population under the age of 15, the business community must join efforts to ensure that this population becomes the global workforce of tomorrow," the USIBC report said.
The US and India can make certain that we do not squander this potential, it said, adding that the business community has committed itself to support educational linkages and vocational training opportunities.
USIBC said the industry should press for forward movement of the Foreign Education Bill in India, which will enable greater collaboration between US and Indian higher educational institutions.
USIBC encourages collaboration between US universities and their Indian counterparts with the intent of formulating a consortium of research universities in India that will augment the high-quality undergraduate Indian Institutes of Technology system, it said.
"We suggest that these research universities could follow the models of incentivising innovation that we see in places like Stanford and MIT," it said.
US industry should consider initiating a new focus on vocational education in India through cooperation between Indian institutions and the American community college system, which is a proven model for skill training, it said.
Fifty years after the Green Revolution, the report said India requires an 'Ever-Green Revolution', a new programme which would engage the country's rural sector, providing water utilisation and crop management 'best practices' to promote greater food security, this time based on technology to increase efficiency and productivity.
While calling for opening of the multi-brand retail sector to organised players, the report said the US and India should agree to back up their joint agriculture dialogue with both resources and solid deliverables.
"We suggest lowering US and Indian tariff and non-tariff barriers which are affecting trade in fresh fruits and vegetables, poultry, pistachios, dairy products, and horticultural products," it said.
"We also seek reduced customs duties on items such as processing equipment, restaurant equipment, and related goods. Reductions in tariffs on processed goods will allow businesses to test product markets so as to properly invest in manufacturing and production facilities in the future, as well," USIBC said.
"US companies should be encouraged to showcase in India their own success stories of business sector intervention in agriculture and food processing. Doing so can raise awareness in a positive way about how 'best practices' and technologies can deliver greater efficiencies.
"The result can be the 'Ever-Green Revolution', a noble objective important to all," USIBC said.