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Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, US), Apr. 27 (ANI): A senior official of the Obama administration has said that while there will be a discussion in Washington and New Delhi on nuclear safety issues in the wake of the March 11 nuclear plant crisis in Japan, civil nuclear cooperation between the United States and India will continue to maintain momentum.

In an interview after addressing the Wharton-India Forum, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert O. Blake Junior told Knowledge@Wharton: “I think that some of our (nuclear) industry leaders have pointed out that this is a setback for their industry, and that this is going to cause a lot of people to take a new and fresh look at the nuclear industry overall.”

“And for us, the importance of India is that in fact there are quite significant nuclear investments. That’s why there’s such strong interest on the part of General Electric and Westinghouse and other companies because they see huge upsides to our cooperation in India,” he added.

He further said: “And from India’s perspective, they have a strong interest in diversifying their energy supplies and to access clean energies as much as possible. Not just renewables, but also nuclear energy. So again, there’s a very strong upside for India as well.But there will have to be a good, honest discussion about the safety issues.”

Admitting that it was a good thing for the government and people of India to debate the issue of nuclear safety in wake of the tsunami-related disaster at the Fukushima-Daichi nuclear plant in Japan, Blake said: “I know that the Lok Sabha and others will be looking closely at this issue. Again, that’s a good thing. That’s what should happen after a calamity like this, is that people take a hard look so that in fact what we’re doing makes sense and is in our interest.”

Realistically, he said that there could be a little bit of a slowdown, and added that he agreed with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s view that it was in India’s interest to proceed with these (nuclear energy) projects.

“What’s most important from our perspective is that the two governments have done almost all that we need to do to allow the companies to then make the decisions about whether they want to go forward with this or not. And in India’s case, it signed the Convention on Supplementary Compensation and is now committed to ratifying that within a year from November. A far as we know, that remains on track and that remains their intention. And then at that point it will be up to the companies to undertake these contract negotiations and of course they will make their own decisions about this,” Blake said.

He added: “I think what’s happened in Japan will affect those to a certain extent. But it’s hard for me, I’m not really an expert to gauge to what extent that will happen.”

He, however, accepted that cooperation in civil nuclear energy could an issue in which political tension could surface again.

Asked to comment on the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) nations call for a new global monetary order in which the U.S. dollar would play a less prominent role, and whether such an initiative would advance or undermine the strategic partnership between the U.S. and India, Blake said that he did not see such a demand having a major impact on US-India ties.

“I don’t see this as something that’s anti-American or directed against the United States. I must say I didn’t hear very much of a reaction, as I’m responsible for India, I never heard a reaction from some of my colleagues about this. So I don’t think it’s had any particular negative impact that I’m aware of,” Blake said.

He also said that because of the success of India’s growth story on the economic front, American companies have realized that there “quite interesting opportunities to market to the very poor.”

He added: “It’s a matter of packaging, really, of getting small, slightly smaller packaging. Because you’re selling to such a large market, your margins are going to be perhaps a little smaller but the overall benefit is quite large. I think many of our companies have seen that and are doing well by it.”

He said that India’s economic growth was bring a lot more people out of poverty, and in that sense, the initial desire of American firms to target “the bottom of the pyramid is (diminishing), as the level of income is getting higher and higher.”

“Those people, in fact, are slowly moving up the chain of the kinds of products they’re able to buy. And increasingly, those are things that American companies would like to offer,” he added. (ANI)