Prime Minister Narendra Modi met CEOs of top US multinational companies yesterday, where he invited them to invest in India, an emerging “business-friendly destination”. Ahead of his maiden meeting with the US President Donald Trump, PM Modi was interacting with the CEOs of top 21 American firms at a roundtable meeting which was attended by CEOs including Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and John Chambers from Cisco, but there was one person who seems to have given the event a miss. At the start of the meeting, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Gopal Bagley took to Twitter, and wrote: “PM Modi strengthening Indo-US economic partnership, meeting 21 business leaders at CEOs roundtable meet.” He also posted a picture which contained the list of names of those in attendance at the meeting. The name which was missing from the list was Microsoft’s Satya Nadella. As of now we do not know what was the reason for his absence.

At the event, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and his Apple counterpart Tim Cook were prominent faces among the delegation of US business leaders who had a meeting with PM Modi in Washington on Sunday. IE reported that Cook apprised Modi about Apple starting production of the iPhone SE in Bengaluru, where the company has also set up a first-of-its-kind app accelerator. Pichai, on the other hand, was quoted by ANI as saying that the meeting was “very good, it was a discussion across many industries”. He also said they were “all looking forward to the July 1 GST roll out, excited to see it happen.” He said there were many good ideas discussed and “I think everyone is excited to invest more in India and I’m excited about what we all can do together.” He said the GST rollout show reform can be achieved by pushing hard for it. “I hope it is just the beginning.” Also, in an interview with CNBC, Cook talked about how the meeting went, and he said: “it was fantastic.”


The other India-born CEOs who took part in the meeting with Modi were Shantanu Narayen of Adobe, Punit Renjen of Deloitte, Ajay Banga of Mastercard and USIBC president Mukesh Aghi. Bagley posted a group picture of Modi and the CEOs and said,”strengthening the Indo-US economic partnership”.

 

At the event, PM Modi spoke about the policies of the NDA government during the last three years and said that as a result of the successful implementation of these policies, India has attracted largest foreign direct investment (FDI). He also listed out the steps taken by his government since coming to power and next moves. He said, “The whole world is looking at India. 7,000 reforms alone by the government for ease of (doing) business and minimum government, maximum governance.”

 

Meanwhile, Amazon founder CEO Jeff Bezos tweeted: “Terrific meeting with @narendramodi. Always impressed, energised by optimism and invention in India. Excited to keep investing and growing.” Modi summed up the meeting by saying, “We held extensive discussions on the opportunities in India.” Modi will meet US President Donald Trump tonight (June 26).