By Arun Kumar
Washington, March 19 (IANS) India has invited US companies to take advantage of its rapid growth and help shape the country into a world-class manufacturing hub with greater investment in its infrastructure.

“Just as our strategic partnership has matured and grown, Indo-US trade and investment has increased dramatically over the past 20 years,” India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said at a gathering Thursday of top US and Indian business executives hosted by the US-India Business Council (USIBC.

Ahead of President Barack Obama’s visit to India later this year, the sixth US presidential visit to India, Sharma asked the private sectors of both countries to establish partnerships and commence new ventures that will demonstrate the mutually beneficial nature of the US-India commercial relationship.

“We now seek collaboration focused on investment in India’s manufacturing sector and the build-out of the country’s infrastructure, shaping the country into a world-class manufacturing hub,” he added.

To facilitate that India is issuing a new foreign investment policy document on March 31 and a new manufacturing policy document “before the fall”, consolidating policy pronouncements in 177 areas.

Sharma said India is also creating national investment and manufacturing zones to attract more foreign interest. The first of these will be in Rajasthan, alongside the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor. “We want these manufacturing zones to be incubators of new innovations and new technologies.”

Obama, who hosted Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his administration’s first state dinner at the White House in November, is expected to visit India in summer or early fall, Indian Ambassador Meera Shankar said.

Underscoring the many opportunities for mutual and inclusive growth, USIBC president Ron Somers noted, “The next phase of the trade and investment relationship will feature the innovations of the Small and Medium Enterprise sectors in India and the US, where fresh ideas and technologies will spur economic growth in both countries.

“These companies will become more integrated into the global supply chain in the years to come and infuse new capital and energy into the US-India partnership.”

“Further opening of India’s retail sector will modernise India’s farm-to-market supply chain. Such productivity will become India’s Second Green Revolution,” Somers said.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)