Getting serious about India
TEXT OF STORY
SCOTT JAGOW: Today, executives from more than 200 U.S. companies met with business officials in India. Some of the giants of Corporate America were represented — IBM, Exxon-Mobil, Lockheed Martin — but many of the people in the delegation had never been to India before. They run small American companies that want a piece of India’s potential. Miranda Kennedy reports from New Delhi.
MIRANDA KENNEDY: This is the first time a U.S. business delegation has included so many representatives from small-sized companies. Since they don’t have the resources that multinational corporations do, these firms need support from the U.S. government.
They want to be here because of India’s 8% economic growth rate and its middle class with more than a hundred million potential consumers of foreign goods. But U.S. trade official Carmine D’Aloisio admits that India isn’t for everybody.
CARMINE D’ALOISIO: If you are a first time exporter just starting out, I would steer you to Ontario. But here, because it’s a developing country, it’s just opening up, it takes a little bit longer.
More than 20 companies in the delegation come from the nuclear sector. The Senate recently cleared a bill that will allow American companies to sell nuclear fuel and technology to India for the first time in history.
In New Delhi, I’m Miranda Kennedy for Marketplace.
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