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US FDI can improve if India reduces limits

Washington, Sat, 09 Jul 2011 ANI

Washington, July 9 (ANI): The United States would like to see the Indian parliament and government take steps to reduce limits on foreign direct investment (FDI) in areas such as retail to boost bilateral economic ties between the two countries, a senior Obama administration official said.

Participating in an interactive web chat with Indian journalists from Washington, Robert O. Blake, Jr., Assistant Secretary, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, said: "Our companies, I think, are hoping that the Indian parliament and the Indian government will take actions to reduce some of the limits on foreign direct investment in areas such as retail."

"That would provide huge new opportunities for our companies, and help India both to increase the level of foreign investment but also to increase the level of jobs in India and help to lower prices for things like food that are of increasing concern to Indian consumers. So I think this would be a net win/win for both of our countries," he added.

Blake said there is great interest in the United States on the part of its business community to expand both investment and trade with partners in India.

"There's already been a tremendous expansion of trade and investment between our two countries over the last ten years and we expect that to continue as India becomes the third largest economy in the world by the year 2030," he added.

Referring to the challenges faced by India on issues such as corruption and lack of transparency, and whether investments by American companies into India have been hit by it, Blake replied in the affirmative.

" I think that corruption and lack of transparency have had some impact. You've seen that in some of the figures where the investment figures have not been as high as the Indian government might have hoped. But I also am confident that the Indian government is taking this challenge very seriously. It has been a preoccupation of the Indian parliament for the last year. So I certainly hope there can be progress on this," he said. (ANI)