PM leaves India Inc at home on business trip

When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh leaves for a week-long visit to the UK and the US on September 19, he will signal some important departures from past practice.

No business delegation -- neither Ficci nor CII -- is accompanying the Prime Minister, although he will hold high-level meetings with British and American CEOs in both London and New York.

Chambers say that this visit represents the PM's exclusive interaction with industrialists in the West.

"The PM is adopting a focused approach towards interacting with the Fortune 500 companies there. He will convey policies and investment opportunities to industrialists abroad. We have been kept informed of this," said N Srinivasan, director general, Confederation of Indian Industry.

"The PM is aware that the chambers keep interacting with American and European countries and sees no necessity for a business delegation to accompany him at present," he added.

Meanwhile, YK Modi, president of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry reasoned that the PM was going to New York primarily to meet UN representatives. As this would be a purely political interaction, chambers and industrialists would serve no functional purpose by their presence.

The government believes that though India has opened up, the Western perception still is that doing business with India is mired in a

sea of red tape and this impression needs to be corrected.

Oddly enough, it is not Finance Minister P Chidambaram who will do the correction but Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Chidambaram is not in PM's delegation.

In the UK, where the PM will arrive on the night of September 19, British Prime Minister Tony Blair will host a dinner for him. A reception will be held for top British CEOs and Foreign Minister K Natwar Singh will meet his counterpart, Jack Straw.

In New York, the highlight will, of course, be a meeting with President George Bush and on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

However, here too, the emphasis will be on selling India as an investment destination to CEOs. More than 50 US CEOs will get a presentation on the new India. Some substantive business is likely to be conducted on the bilateral economic front when the Group on Economic Cooperation meets.

Montek, who has been appointed as co-chair of the group, will be assisted by foreign secretary Shyam Saran and they will meet with US under secretary of state Alan Larson. Larson is expected to visit India later this year.

Unlike his visit to BIMStec where principal secretary TKA Nair did not accompany the PM, this time, Nair will be part of the PM's team as will be national security advisor JN Dixit.