US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke will arrive this week for a two-day visit to India, that will see the third round of high-level economic dialogue between the two nations.
The visit of two of the topmost financial administrators of the US, who will hold a series of meetings with top Indian policy makers on Tuesday and Wednesday in Delhi and Mumbai, comes amid a flurry of reformist moves by the UPA government over the last few weeks.
On Tuesday, the two will participate in the third annual meeting of the US-India Economic and Financial Partnership with finance minister P Chidambaram.
“The meetings will conclude with a joint press conference of Geithner and Chidambaram,” an official said.
Later that day, Geithner will also participate in a moderated discussion hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the US-India Business Council.
On Wednesday, Geithner will travel to Mumbai, the country’s financial center, to meet Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Duvvuri Subbarao Subbarao, as well as Indian business leaders from a variety of industries.
In the first visit of its kind by a chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Bernanke will also meet Subbarao, his Indian counterpart.
{{/usCountry}}In the first visit of its kind by a chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Bernanke will also meet Subbarao, his Indian counterpart.
{{/usCountry}}The Indian government had been the target of unsparing criticism from global credit rating firms for stalled reforms and the delicate state of its macroeconomic finances. Economists and experts would be looking for cues on Geithner and Bernanke’s response to India’s bold moves, including allowing foreign invest in retail trade and hiking diesel prices to contain the budget deficit.
Bernanke, who had met Subbarao last year in Washington as part of the second annual meeting of the US-India Economic and Financial Partnership, will also meet the RBI top brass this time.