Business heads meet Nirmala Sitharaman

As part of the 2nd strategic and commercial dialogue between the two countries

Top honchos of India Inc met Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday, a day before they are set to sit down with industry leaders from the United States (US) as part of the 2nd Strategic and Commercial Dialogue (S&CD) between the two countries.

Ten industry leaders including Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry, HDFC Chaiman Deepak Parekh and ICICI Bank Managing Director Chanda Kochhar met Sitharaman to dicsuss issues expected to be taken up at the Joint CEOs Forum on Tuesday.

"Lot of areas have been specifically looked into for greater cooperation between India and the US commercial matters whether you talk about energy and manufacturing of certain items," Sitharaman told reporters after the meeting.

The other issues which come up for deliberations include the US participation in smart cities, medical devices manufacturing and its technology and setting up of civil nuclear power generation centres, she added.

 

Also present from the group of about 10 CEOs, were Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal and Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra, among others.

Set up last year, the Forum had recommended key policy enablers including greater partnership in the renewable energy sector, more business engagements and promoting ease of doing business in India. On these, both the sides are working on the US-India Energy Finance Initiatives, which is expected to mobilize upto $400 million by 2020.

It will review the status of action taken on the previously submitted recommendations as well as make fresh recommendations for further expanding trade and investment between both the countries.

The commercial track of S&CD will be led by Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her US counterpart Penny Pritzker and the two ministers will also preside over the CEO Forum meeting.

Also on Monday, Sitharaman met British Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox and deliberated upon ways to boost the two-way trade besides possibility of negotiating a free trade agreement (FTA).

Allthough eager to deepen economic relations with India, Britain can only go forward on FTA talks once it is officially out of the European Union.

India is already negotiating a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU, and after the Brexit, it will have to rework its strategy of negotiations.

The bilateral trade between India and the UK stood at $14 billion in 2015-16 as against $14.33 billion in 2014-15. India also received $23.10 billion FDI from Britain between April 2000 to March 2016.

There is a Joint Economic and Trade Committee (JETCO) meeting, which is also expected to happen at the end of this year, Sitharaman said.