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Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has dined with Fortune 500 CEOs on Thursday in the US and invited them to 'Make in India'. The PM listed the sectors that India had opened up for investments.
Modi told the 47 CEOs from the Fortune 500 companies, that, “Reform in governance is my number 1 priority. We are for simplified procedures, speedy decision making, transparency and accountability."
"FDI all over the world has fallen but in India it increased by 40 percent. This reflects confidence in the Indian economy," the Prime Minister said.
PM said that India is ready to receive them with both hands and also said that it is the perfect time for them to make investments in the country, which is the largest democratic country in the world.
Few of the Fortune 500 companies CEOs who attended the dinner:
Lockheed Martin Chairman and CEO Marillyn Hewson
Ford President and CEO Mark Fields
IBM Chairman Ginni Rometty
Pepsi Co Chief Indra Nooyi
Dow Chemical Chairman Andrew Liveris
Citigroup Chairman Michael O'Neill
MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga
Boeing International President Marc Allen
Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn
Blackstone President Hamilton James
SanDisk co-founder Sanjay Mehrotra
Harman International Chairman Dinesh Palatal
Time Inc CEO Joe Ripp
After the Modi’s meet with top executives belonging to major media and communication companies, the dinner followed. During the meet, India was presented by PM as a technology-driven society. Protection to Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) was also pledged.
At a roundtable meeting with executives of companies like Time Warner, ESPN, Comcast, 21st Century Fox, Discovery, News Corp, Sony, ABC television group, and Disney Industries, the PM said, "This is a technology driven era. We are a technology driven society.”
The main idea behind the meet was to know the trends in communication technologies and media, along with opportunities for India. Modi earlier in the day has met eight financial entities in the US such as JP Morgan and Blackstone to outline efforts made to increase investments in key areas during the last 15 months.
James Dimon, CEO of J P Morgan, said, "The government has already undertaken a massive amount of reforms. Key message from the US companies was keep doing what you are doing. I had a great meeting, there was a constructive dialogue in the spirit of collaboration. We are looking at India trying to get foreign direct investment."
-Sumana
