Chidambaram heads off to US with FDI dream

In a bid to lure capital inflows, finance minister P Chidambaram along with commerce minister Anand Sharma and deputy chairman Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia are travelling to Washington on July 11-12 for a Indo-US CEO Forum meeting. HT reports.

In a bid to lure capital inflows, finance minister P Chidambaram along with commerce minister Anand Sharma and deputy chairman Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia are travelling to Washington on July 11-12 for a Indo-US CEO Forum meeting.

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Chidambaram travelled to US last April looking for FDI and FII flows.

Top government sources said Chidambaram will also be meeting US Treasury secretary Jacob Lew and brief the Indo-US CEO Forum on further reforms that India intends to take to invite more FDI.

While the Indian side of the Indo-US CEOs Forum will be headed by former Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata, the US side will be co-chaired by David M Cote, CEO of Honeywell Corporation.

While Chidambaram is convinced about Indian recovery, the concern is about outflows to the tune of over $7 million in June after US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s speech on strategy of buying US treasury bonds to push down interest rates last May.

Although Chidambaram is positive about Indian economy stabilizing and posting GDP growth over five per cent this financial year, the focus is to get FII inflows into the country and attracting FDI by increasing c eilings in key infrastructure sectors like Telecom.