In remarks to the 26th annual convention of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin here in Las Vegas, Sen exhorted the Indian American community to get this message out to the American public to counter the unfair rap India gets that American jobs are being outsourced to India.
"More and more people are realising that whether it's trade, whether it's investment, whether it's job creation, it's a two-way street. Indian exports to the United States are growing last year they grew by 10 percent - but US exports to India grew by 35 percent and India is the fastest growing export destination for the United States," he said.
Sen said, it was "the same with investments," and went on to recall that "when I was first appointed and I took over as High Commissioner in UK, I mentioned to the British audience shortly on my arrival that a time will come very soon that Indian investments in Britain will equal or even exceed British investments in India."
"I was greeted with some silence, a few smiles, because they thought it was an attempt at humor, but nobody really took it seriously. And, same, when I came to the United States in 2004, in the first meeting of the US-India Business Council, I said the same thing with regard to the United States that very soon you'll have Indian investment in the United States, which will equal or exceed US investments in India."
Sen said that today, "That's actually happened in both countries, and this is good. And, I would request you - because you come across this wide cross-section of people in the United States - just to make this reality evident to most others because they think that when they think of jobs, they think of India, they think of outsourcing, they think of India."
He reiterated that "it's not reality and it's something which we are not even interested in because India will continue to import more than we export. India's growth is not going to be threatening. It's not going to be led by exports, it's going to be led by domestic demand."
Sen argued that "India will fund most of its own investments because our investment rate just in the last 10 years that a lot of people are not aware of and sometimes people get surprised is- that our growth rate from saving and investment rates from domestic savings rates and investments rates in the last 10 years has grown from 24 percent to more than 36 percent."
But, he acknowledged that "we need technology and we need imports and technology transfer and also capital in certain areas and that's important. And, in that, the United States is becoming an important partner."
