 "Prasad invites US firms to start manufacturing in India")
"When we say Make in India, we invite big American companies to manufacture here. We will give all benefits available for Indian companies. Make for India and make for exports," Prasad said at the 'India US Dialogues' event organised by The Observer Research Foundation and Network 18.
The government is willing to dole out incentives for manufacturing electronics in the country. "To put it simply, if you invest $100 here, we will give you $25. You will benefit from the incentives given by individual states also," Prasad said.
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The government has also opened up an electronic development fund worth billions of dollars to support electronics manufacturing in the country, he said, adding that information technology (IT) can be another area where India and the US can work together. The event comes on the heel of the US President Barack Obama three day visit to the India.
India imported telecom products worth Rs 69,516.37 crore in 2013-14, while exports of such items were at Rs 20,475.17 crore during the year, leaving a significant deficit of Rs 49,041.20 crore.
"About 60 per cent of India's IT exports are to the US. Whenever I go Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, I see American companies having back-end offices there. People come to meet me from Facebook, Google and they are all keen to invest more in India," Prasad said. "Internet revolution is happening.E-commerce is growing at a pace of 37 per cent. We are bridging the digital divide.We are committed to promote Indian languages in the digital medium," he said.
Obama, who arrived on Sunday on a three-day visit, welcomed the development and said renewal of the defence pact will guide the bilateral defence cooperation for next ten years.
"We agreed to deepen our defence and security cooperation.... And in a major step forward for our relationship, defence technology and trade initiative will allow us to jointly develop and produce defence technologies," he said.
Obama added that both Modi and he have also agreed to a "new vision for Asia Pacific".
The first framework agreement, which expires this year, was signed in the US in 2005 by the then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his US counterpart in the previous George W.Bush administration, Donald Rumsfeld.