India and US set a very powerful economic cooperation agenda on Wednesday that finance minister Pranab Mukherjee described as reaching for the stars.

?Together we must try to reach for the stars,? he told the leaders of Indian and US business.

The phrase was promptly echoed by the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton who said ?we look forward to translating a lot of (that agenda) into reality.?

The plans include creation of a $10-billion fund to finance infrastructure, liberalising the caps for foreign direct investment in sectors like insurance, retail and even defence and a bilateral investment treaty. Other than infrastructure, the CEOs also identified three areas of cooperation including clean energy, education and e-health and biotechnology.

India will also set up a high-level committee to identify areas for expanding economic ties with the US, from where it expects an estimated investment of $250-300 billion in infrastructure space. The committee, to be set up under Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, will coordinate with various ministries and prepare a road map before US President Barack Obama?s visit to India in November.

Asked whether the US officials he met sought further liberalisation, Mukherjee said: ?Certain issues that are pending — naturally they emphasised on it. For instance, the opening up of the insurance sector, 26% to 49% , where the pending legislation is there.? Among the officials Mukherjee met was US treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner.

? Similarly, to have the replicable model in respect of what we have done in mega-power project to replicate it in the sectors of road and others. There is also the land acquisition bill, which is pending and rehabilitation of the displaced persons ? these legislations are pending. So, they expect that we shall have to expedite these legislative actions,? Mukherjee said.

Speaking at the same Forum, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said the government favoured calibrated FDI liberalisation in sectors like defence and retail. ?(In) defence and retail trade … we favour calibrated (foreign investment) liberalisation on account of domestic sensitivities,? he said on Tuesday.

Sharma also met US Trade Representative Ron Kirk and the two leaders agreed to enhance opportunities for bilateral trade and investment to create jobs in both countries. He reviewed implementation of the India-US Trade Policy Forum Framework for Cooperation on Trade and Investment signed in March 2010.

? Kirk urged India to address long-standing impediments such as investment caps, agricultural market access barriers, high tariffs, intellectual property rights and the need for continuing regulatory streamlining and transparency,? USTR spokesman Matthew Lawrence said in a statement.

On the sectors identified by the CEOs, he said those have been made jointly. ?They also suggested what are the impediments in fully exploiting the relationship between our two countries and a breakthrough of the long-term ideas,? he noted.

Mukherjee said that after returning to India, he would ?set up a committee, a small group, under d eputy chairman of the Planning Commission, who will coordinate with all the ministries concerned on the issues which have been identified.?

The committee would then ?prepare a road map on what could be done and what are achievable, so that before (the US) President?s visit to India in November, both the leaders (Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh) are in a position that these are the areas in which progress has been made and what further progress could be made, that could be known.?

He added that India can grow as per the International Monetary Fund?s estimate of 8.8% growth this year, higher than the finance ministry?s forecast of 8.5%. Mukherjee said the strong performance through the financial crisis was due to the country?s ?dynamic? corporate sector and to high levels of savings and investment.

He reiterated India?s opposition to any plan to tax banks for funding future bailouts. Allaying fears of the European crisis impacting the Indian economy, Mukherjee said it will not have much impact as exports to the region is limited. ?Not much (impact), because our export is about 4% of our total export. Therefore, it could not have that much adverse impact,? he said.