CEO Forum gets full support from Singh & Obama

NEW DELHI: Top Indian and American CEOs who met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President Barack Obama at Hyderabad House in New Delhi on Monday said the two leaders extended wholehearted support to their recommendations on working together in sectors such as clean energy, health, infrastructure and education.

The Indo-US CEO Forum, consisting of 20 CEOs and chiefs from Indian and American firms, also discussed opportunities and impediments in bilateral trade during the meeting that lasted for 45 minutes.

CEOs from the Indian side were led by the head of the Tata group, Ratan Tata, and included leading industrialists such as Reliance Industries’ Mukesh Ambani, HDFC’s Deepak Parekh, Bharti Enterprises’ Sunil Bharti Mittal, Biocon’s Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, SBI’s O P Bhatt, Infosys’ S Gopalakrishnan and Max India’s Analjit Singh.

Honeywell International chairman & CEO David Cote led the American side which included PepsiCo’s Indra Nooyi, UTC’s Louis Chênevert, Qualcomm chief Paul Jacobs, and McGraw-Hill Cos chairman Harold McGraw III.

"Both leaders welcomed our suggestions and said they will look to ensure the recommendations are implemented in a time-bound manner,” said Biocon’s Kiran Mazumdar Shaw. Mr Obama reiterated the US’ desire to make India one of its top trading partners.

The US-India forum is into its fifth year. “This forum is maturing now. So, in the early days, we were getting to know each other, now we have tangible recommendations. We are going to do homework to ensure that we implement those recommendations,” Ms Nooyi said.