India is open minded, Modi tells top US CEOs

  Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton embraces External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj as former president Bill Clinton shakes hands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New York yesterday.

IANS/New York

India is open-minded and wants change, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told top executives of American companies, including Google and Citigroup, during a high-powered breakfast meeting here yesterday.

“India is open-minded. We want change, Change that is not 1 sided. Am discussing with citizens, industrialists, investors,” Syed Akbaruddin, spokesman of the external affairs ministry, in a tweet, quoted Modi as saying.

The breakfast meeting with 11 CEOs, including those of Google, Citigroup and PepsiCo, was followed by one-on-one meetings with six other CEOs of companies like Boeing, IBM, GE and Goldman Sachs.

Modi discussed infrastructure development with the CEOs.

“Infrastructure development is a big opportunity; it creates jobs and enhances the quality of life of our citizens,” Modi told the CEOs at the breakfast where business was top on the agenda.

The CEOs were presented with special gift packs of tea from the Tea Board of India with the prime minister’s signature on the boxes. The tea flavours were Darjeeling, Assam and Nilgiris.

The morning business engagement was among the most important Modi has in the US.

James McNerney, chairman of Boeing, during his one-on-one meeting with Modi said his company wanted to accelerate engagement with India, according to a tweet by the spokesperson.

IBM CEO Virginia Rometty discussed software for Modi’s “Smart Cities” Digital India Initiative.

Laurence D Fink, CEO of Black Rock, American multinational investment management firm, told Modi the company would host a global investors’ meeting in India in early 2015.

Modi also held one-on-one meetings with Jeffrey R Immelt. chairman and CEO of General Electric; Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs; and Henry Kravis, CEO of American private equity fund Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co.

Later in the day, Modi met former US president Bill Clinton and his wife and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj was also present during the meeting.

lThree cities are in line to be adopted for the government’s “Smart Cities” project by way of technology and infrastructure upgrade during Modi’s talks in Washington.

The government is keen to push ahead with the project under which 100 smaller cities are to be upgraded to match the resources of the top metros. Japan has evinced interest in developing the oldest living city of Varanasi into a smart city.

Three cities are likely to be identified as part of the smart cities project during talks in Washington, said an official source declining to be named.

India is also seeking co-operation in renewable energy, including solar, wind and hydro. Modi has been pushing for the use of renewable energy, and the visit is expected to see major co-operation in this sector, with the US EXIM bank expected to provide the loans.

The sticky issue of India’s Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime is also to be in focus during the talks. US firms have decried India’s IPR regime as restrictive.

The US has been irked after the Supreme Court last year rejected drug major Novartis’s plea for a patent on cancer drug Glivec. The Indian government also last year invoked compulsory licence on Bayer Corporation’s cancer-treatment drug Nexavar, permitting Hyderabad-based Natco Pharma to manufacture and sell the drug 30 times less than the price charged by its patent-holder.

The US feels that IPRs are not being adequately enforced in India and following the grant of compulsory licence to manufacture Bayer’s anti-cancer drug there is concern that there could be more such compulsory licences.