Washington: With a view to suggesting proposals to boost bilateral trade, the India-US CEO Forum on Thursday began meeting which was attended by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Tata Group chief Ratan Tata and RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani.
Welcoming the Indian delegation, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns highlighted the important role the private sector plays in the US-India partnership.
Deputy National Security Adviser Michael Froman and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia along with CEO co-chairs Ratan Tata and David Cote led the meeting of the Forum.
The Indian delegation included Commerce Minister Anand Sharma.
Hari Bhartia of Jubilant Lifesciences, Pratip Chaudhuri of SBI, Ashok Sekhar Ganguly of ABP, S Gopalakrishnan of Infosys, Chanda Kochhar of ICICI Bank, Sunil Mittal of Bharti Enterprises, Deepak Parekh of HDFC, Preetha Reddy of Apollo Hospitals, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw of Biocon and Analjit Singh of Max India were among the corporate leaders who attended the meeting.
The CEO Forum is an effort of the two governments and the private sectors to enhance bilateral trade and investment.
The Forum last met in November 2010 in New Delhi. The US side is led by David Cote of Honeywell. India born PepsiCo chief Indra Nooyi and Vikram Pandit of Citigroup also part of the US team.
The opening ceremony was, however, not open to the media. "He (Geithner) looks forward very much to seeing him again in Washington. He saw him a few months ago.They had a very robust dialogue. They've got a very good, close working relationship," a senior Treasury official said.
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