The areas where the US companies can invest include financial services, energy, environment, small sector, biotechnology, information technology (IT), drugs and pharmaceuticals, telecom, infrastructure and research and development.

Stressing that synergy exists between industry in the two countries, the CII report says the time is ripe to give it a big push and achieve the desired result through India's abundant reserve of skilled and qualified manpower, world class quality, high reliability and strong brand equity and America's booming economy.

On the export front alone, India should at least be able to export products worth $15 billion to the US within the next five years and $25 billion within the next ten years. "Meeting these targets will require a big push from both the industry and government", the report says, adding that the biggest thrust has to be in the services sector since in merchandise goods the US may not be completely open to a sudden surge in exports from one particular country.

Stressing that the future of the Indo-US trade will depend as much on private sector initiatives as in government involvement, the CII report says it is time to build a lasting relationship. The timing cannot be better.The CII, at the same time, warns against the slippages of the past decade. During 1991-99, for example, the total inflow of US investments stood at $2.5 billion from an actual approval of $13.5 billion. As against this, the total FDI approval from the US to China during this period was $40 billion out of which $21 billion was utilised.

What is of concern to India is that the volume of the Indo-US bilateral trade remains a fraction of the US's global trade. While the US exports to India account for nearly 12 per cent of India's non-oil imports and the US is the destination of 18.9 per cent of India's exports, the US's trade turnover with India consitutes less than 1 per cent of its global trade. The silver lining, however, is that India's share in the US imports has been rising gradually and increased from 0.84 per cent in 1997 to 0.90 per cent in 1998.

Dwelling on information technology, the CII report says that with the global IT industry reaching a potential $2 trillion industry, the Government of India aims at garnering a software revenue of $87 billion by the year 2008. IT software and services export alone are expected to yield a revenue of $50 billion.

Similarly, on the power sector, over the next ten years the US investment is estimated at $143 billion, including investments required in transmission and distribution. Most of this amount will have to be funded by the private sector, both domestic and foreign, says the CII.

Investment opportunities abound in the areas of telecom, oil and natural gas and bio-technology, among others, necessitating greater interaction between the two countries, the CII report adds, pointing out how Mr Vajpayee's visit to US can be turned into an opportunity at identifying more areas of co-operation in trade and industry.