When finance minister Pranab Mukherjee leaves for Chicago later this month, his focus will be on a cocktail of art, culture and economics.
Mukherjee will not only have cultural engagements on the occasion of the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Rabindranath Tagore and functions commemorating Swami Vivekananda. He will also try to impress the India growth story upon American investors and the Indo-American community.
The finance minister is leaving for a three-day trip to Chicago, home to some of the biggest companies in the world, on January 28. He is to inaugurate an exhibition of Tagore’s paintings, at the Art Institute, where Vivekananda delivered his inspiring speech at the World Parliament of Religions in 1893.
Mukherjee will also find some time to pursue the country's economic interests. The minister will address senior business leaders during an interaction at the Chicago Council of Global Affairs, trying to woo or reassure investors. He will also meet the Indo-American community in the state of Illinois, of which Chicago is the largest city. Around 30 of the Fortune 500 companies, including Boeing, Caterpillar, McDonald’s, Kraft Foods, Abbott Laboratories, Motorola Solutions, Sara Lee, Dover, Walgreen and Aon are headquartered in Illinois. Many of these have a strong presence in India.
After the government’s proposal to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail was stalled recently, owing to opposition from some allies and opposition, Mukherjee will have a tough job to convince investors and correct the perception of ‘policy paralysis’.
India's economic growth is expected to be below eight per cent in 2011-12, from the 8.5 per cent recorded in 2010-11. For the first half of this financial year, the economy grew by just 7.3 per cent.
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The visit also comes on the heels of the government allowing foreign individuals, pension funds and trusts, collectively called Qualified Foreign Investors (QFIs) to directly invest in equity markets here. The move came with expectations that QFIs would bring long-term investments to offset the huge volatility seen in the money poured in by foreign institutional investors.
The US and India have already agreed to push bilateral trade to $100 billion in five years, against the $48.5 billion in 2011.
Mukherjee is to announce the creation of ‘The Indian Ministry of Culture Vivekananda Chair’ at the University of Chicago.
The exhibition of Tagore paintings by the Art Institute of Chicago will be the first of its kind in the region. Three years ago, the institute had hosted the paintings of the late Nandalal Bose, also from West Bengal.