As India and the US prepare for their top company heads to meet here in July under the aegis of the India-US CEOs Forum, the question in several minds here echoes the one asked by the influential Economist magazine a few weeks earlier: "Does India have what it takes to become a great power?"
The Forum itself, meant to better integrate the economic, political and strategic policies of the two countries, has only met twice, the first in 2009 and the second in 2011.
Like the third meeting, both previous ones were also in the US capital. But there are hardly any questions raised, certainly neither by the Indian government nor by its top CEOs, as to why such a high-profile body doesn't travel to India every alternate year to hold its meeting, the accepted norm. Perhaps, American CEOs are too busy to make that effort to visit India, although the truth is that they routinely make China a key destination.
In previous years, the Forum has focused on how to bolster the bilateral relationship by identifying greater economic collaboration in certain areas. This time, the determination of the Obama administration to introduce immigration reform, aimed at enhancing employment for Americans, is expected to be on top of the Indian agenda. There are several killer provisions to this immigration reform Bill, put together by a politically bipartisan group, which if passed could deal a body blow to top Indian information technology (IT) companies such as Infosys, TCS, Wipro, etc.
The Bill, essentially, argues that any US company must employ at least 50 per cent Americans as employees and if it still wants foreign workers, it must pay a certain amount for a visa for each of them. This visa fee, anything upwards of $12,000 a worker, is already giving nightmares to Indian IT companies, many of whose rags-to-riches stories have been based on the development of the US economy.
Indian business also remains concerned at the high levels of detentions, recalls of shipments and "illegal" declaration of Indian basmati rice being traded with the US because the US Food and Drugs Adminsitration (FDA) believes the rice contains the presence of pesticides not listed by the US. The Indian generic pharma industry is also reeling under provisions of a new US law which requires it to pay $299 million for the next five years and raises multi-fold the cost of applying for a product application.
Under the circumstances, the Indian CEOs are bound to remind US chair David Cote of his own quote from 2011, when he said "India's economy should not be seen as a burden on the US. Job creation there (in India) does not equate to job loss here".
