Thaindian News

By Arun Kumar
Washington, Oct 20 (IANS) Underscoring the “significance” that US puts on its “important economic relationship” with India, the White House hopes to have “some tangible results” from President Barack Obama’s visit to India.

“Look, obviously, this is an important relationship,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Tuesday when asked how the President was preparing for his trip to India in early November in the midst of a tough election campaign.

“It’s an important trip,” he said. “Look, just from a viewpoint economically, we understand …what we have to do to create jobs, to grow our exports, to ensure that it just doesn’t fall on American consumers to drive world demand.”

“That’s a lot of what you’ll hear the President talk about on that trip, and we’ll hopefully have some tangible results from it,” Gibbs said.

Noting that Obama had hosted the first state dinner of his administration in honour of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last November, he said: “I think that gives you the degree of understanding in terms of the significance that this government and this administration puts on that relationship.”

“It’s an important economic relationship,” Gibbs said. “So the President is involved in fairly regular meetings with the national security team to ensure a successful visit not long after the elections.”

At the State Department spokesman Mark Toner did not say whether Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be accompanying Obama on his India trip.

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