Martin O’Malley, governor of Maryland, United States, believes foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail trade would benefit India. He is in the country with a business delegation from his state. In an interview with Shaikh Zoaib Saleem, he says Indian growth path is promising. Edited excerpts:
What are you looking forward to with this visit to India?
We firmly believe that the defining relationship of our times would be the relationship between the peoples of India and the US. It would be economically irresponsible for us not to become more engaged with India's business, trade and education. To that end, we have brought the largest delegation ever from a single state to India and primarily they are business people. That is because of the tremendous market that is India, which has tremendous talent and huge economic opportunities.
Recently, the slowdown theory for the Indian economy was substantiated by the government figures for growth, investment and consumption. Do you feel this situation will have any impact on the prospects of your visit?
When you look at the sort of growth that India has achieved, seven to eight per cent, we look forward to a time when we would be able to achieve that rate. The whole world has been in a slowdown.
What are the sectors you are looking forward to for investments in India?
We would push our strong sectors such as food processing, biotech, life sciences, information technology, cyber security and aerospace. Also, every conversation we make comes down to food, food chain, food processing, and we have a lot of strengths in that area as well. Maryland is the gateway for the West.
Will companies from Maryland try to encash if India decides to go ahead with FDI in the retail sector ultimately?
We don’t have any large retailers headquartered in Maryland. Headquartered in our state are a lot of expertise in logistics and food security. Overall, FDI would benefit India. There is much need and potential to maximise the amount of food grown in India that has no way of getting to the market.
Maryland is also known for its expertise in aviation. Any deals in the sector with Indian companies?
I hope so. There is a tremendous market here. We met the minister of civil aviation here. We have companies who specialise in ground to air communications. So probably, there are collaborations both in civil and defence aviation between the two.
Immigration sometimes poses hurdles in enhancing ties, any measures you would like to take to improve immigration on both the sides?
Our country is in a bit of gridlock situation. Our immigration policies are counter-productive and prevent the US from creating the kind of jobs we could create at home. We have to get over that. Sometimes, our country goes very fearful of the outside world. We sometimes fall into an island nation mentality. But the more positive story is, throughout ages, people from all over have gone to the US and we gather one nation from many nations.
