Indian cos saved thousands of jobs in US: CII

A new study by the Confederation of Indian Industry said that India-based companies that have invested in the US were responsible for saving thousands of jobs in America in recent years.

The study titled, 'Indian Roots, American Soil: A Look at Indian Companies in the US Economy,' was released at Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on Wednesday at a ceremony attended by several US lawmakers from both the Senate and House.

Besides the presence of several lawmakers and India's Ambassador to the US Meera Shankar, who delivered the keynote address highlighting the jobs and investment created by Indian companies in the US, the event saw participation of the CII-Indian Business forum members -- executives from 25 Indian companies that do business in the US.

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Shankar said, "Indian businesses have invested widely in the US economy in diverse sectors in the fields of services and manufacturing and have generated and sustained thousands of direct and indirect jobs in the US economy.

"Consequently, she said that by doing so, Indian companies had been instrumental in contributing to "the global competitiveness of US companies."

Kiran Pasricha, CII's indefatigable deputy director general, who has been based in Washington, DC for more than a decade, said, "This is CII's first major attempt in bringing together Indian companies with operations in the US, as a group, to interact with members of the US Congress."

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Explaining the rationale for putting together the event, she said, "What we want to do is highlight the range and depth of the US-India business relationship and to dispel some of the misconceptions attached to Indian companies."

"We want the Congress to understand and appreciate the growing contributions of Indian companies to the US economy, and to US society," Pasricha added.

The study, based on a survey of 35 CII-India Business forum member companies had some hard facts in the form on bullet points pointing to the investments and the jobs created by these companies.

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They included that since 2005, nearly two thirds of Indian companies have added jobs to their US operations and that together, these 35 companies employ more than 60,000 people across 40 states and the District of Columbia.

The report also noted that more than four-fifths of workers of these companies are hired locally and that an overwhelming majority of workers who are employed at these companies are American citizens.

It also spoke of how India-based companies that have operations in the US have saved 2,585 jobs from being eliminated due to their acquisition of American firms and put the value of these acquisitions since 2005 as upwards of $5.9 billion.

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The sectors these companies represented spanned a wide spectrum, including pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, health-care, energy, iron and steel and of course, information technology.

Among some of the companies that participated at the Capitol Hill event included Bharat Forge, Essar Americas, Export-Import Bank of India, HCL America, Infotech Enterprises, Infosys, Larson & Toubro Ltd, Mahindra Satyam, Mahindra USA, Polaris, Ranbaxy, Tata Communications, Tata Consultancy Services, Taj Hotels, Tata Sons, Welspun, Wipro, Wockhardt and Zee TV.