Late Thursday evening (7.30 pm IST), Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to have individual meetings with CEOs/Presidents of five global companies. Soon after reaching Washington DC, “The first engagement is the meetings with CEOs/Presidents of Qualcomm, Adobe, First Solar Company, Blackstone Chair and Chief Executive of General Atomics Global Corporation,” a source confirmed to Financial Express Online.
“This year there is no roundtable with the CEOs. However, CEOs/Presidents of the five US based companies have been called for a meeting with PM Modi. The day will start with the first meeting with Cristiano R Amon, President and CEO of Qualcomm, followed by Adobe Chairman Shantanu Narain. CEO of First Solar Company Mark Widmer will meet with the PM, then Dr Vivek, Chief Executive, General Atomics Global Corporation, and the last meeting will be with Blackstone Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder Stephen A Schwarzmann.
The focus of these individual meetings which are going to last about 15 minutes each, according to the source quoted above is to invite the American companies to invest in India
In 2019, during his visit to the US, PM Modi had met with CEOs of 42 companies which had included defence manufactures, oil and gas as well as IT top players in the US and the agenda of that meeting was focused on investments, joint production of defence platforms as well as deepening of the Indo-US ties.
The significance of the meeting with the CE of General Atomics Global Corporation?
Dr Vivek Lall is also on the Board of Directors of two major US based Business Councils including the US-Japan Business Council (USJBC), as well as the US India Business Council (USIBC). In Washington DC, in this century, he is considered to be the industry architect of the US-India relationship. For today’s meeting he is the only CE from the Defence industry who will meet with PM Modi.
The India-US military trade has reached USD 20 billion and some deals are still in the pipeline and are expected to be inked soon. This includes 30 Sea Guardian Unmanned Aerial Systems for the three services, which is likely to be cleared whenever the next Defence Acquisition Council meets here in New Delhi.
The new Global order has opened up more opportunities for India, Japan and the US to work very closely on issues related to strengthening strategic partnership, emerging technologies as well as trade and investments. And in USIBC, Dr Lall was inducted into the Global Board of Directors. He has also held a key advisory role heading the Department of Transportation (which encompassed entities like the Federal Aviation Administration).