When US firms come with eyes wide open8217;

Hold your breath, the areas of co-operation Wisner and Michael Clark, the USIBC8217;s executive director who8217;s flown in with him are talking of cooperation in knowledge industries like space and informationtechnology, bio-technology, and so on. How8217;s this giant leap possible with the US putting restrictions on the number of Indian software professionals who can visit the US on an H-1 visa, or with the US government persisting with its entities8217; list, or a list of Indian companies and research organisations which cannot be given sensitive or sophisticated dual-use technology?

Wisner doesn8217;t know the specifics of how, but promises every possible effort will be made to do this. To ensure an almost unlimited number of Indian knowledge-personnel8217; can visit the US for 4-6 weeks on specific projects, perhaps, a way can be found to exclude this from the H-1 requirement 8211; this is a potential WTO collaboration area. Similarly, the US is working on how the entities8217; list can be pruned, to allow serious work to take place between the two countries quot;while respecting each other8217;s concernsquot;. A delegation lead by the Deputy US Trade Representative is in fact coming to India on November 1, and this will attempt to tackleprecisely these areas where the US and India can co-operate at the WTO.

Following this meeting will be the Seattle Ministerial where all countries will be deciding the future agenda for the WTO, and then a Chicago and a New York series of meetings of US-India officials. Both countries have a lot of baggage and a history of suspicion, but these meetings provide an opportunity to address them.

As for US business, Wisner and Clark8217;s is just an exploratory visit, preparatory to a very large US delegation 8211; the biggest the USIBC8217;s ever had 8211; comprising around 100 US firms and 200 senior executives. Clark says the number of US and Indian sponsors they8217;ve already got is also around double they got the last time in Chennai and that shows the level of interest. Apart from the business done, Clark says, this visit will help the USIBC focus on how they will project India in the US 8211; that8217;s probably films on India8217;s contribution to information technology, to e-commerce, to the knowledge industry, and so on.

As forwhat the IRA Bill and the telecom reforms mean for inflow of US investment into India, Wisner says it8217;s a few billion dollars. quot;Clearly, the money that will come in from the insurance firms will run into hundreds of million dollars, while that in telecom is a few billion,quot; estimates Wisner. Is India a difficult destination? Are US firms worried about conflicting signals such as, say, Haryana going slow on power reforms? quot;Conflicting signals do set us thinking, but US firms are coming in with their eyes wide openquot; and quot;India8217;s clearly learnt how to deal with the politics of coalitionsquot;. AIG, Wisner says, has already invested around 250 million in private equity of Indian firms, and has plans to invest a total of 1 billion 8211; that8217;s independent of what it will bring in for its insurance joint venture with the Tatas.

A word of caution though, advises Wisner. Clinton8217;s visit comes towards the end of his term 8211; so after 6-8 months, you8217;ll have a slowing down in the new initiatives the US will take and thenit8217;ll be some months before the new President gets cracking. In other words, if the two countries wish to put their relations on a higher level, they8217;d better get cracking now. Don8217;t treat Clinton8217;s visit as a routine one from a head of state 8211; else, it8217;ll be another two decades before another US president comes calling.