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Clinton Makes Final
Appeal for Closer U.S.-India Ties (New York Times) India set to be one of the world's great economic power (BBC)
BOMBAY, India, March 24 -- In a parting message, President Clinton addressed a group of businessmen at the stock exchange tonight, saying that he hoped his visit India over the last five days would become the catalyst for a new relationship with the United States. "Friends don't have to agree on every issue," Mr. Clinton said. "They just have to have an honest relationship." He appealed again to India to reduce tensions on the subcontinent with its neighbor, Pakistan, and to foreswear nuclear weapons, asking Indians to work for "the proliferation of new ideas" and not "dangerous weapons." Mr. Clinton was scheduled to leave here for Islamabad on Saturday morning to meet with the military leader of Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. The president will suggest that the confrontation with India over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir holds dark consequences for Pakistan, said Sandy Berger, Mr. Clinton's national security advisor. He also is expected to urge Pakistan's leaders to move forcefully toward restoring democracy after the October coup that brought Gen. Musharraf to power. Earlier today, Mr. Clinton concentrated on the economy, the area where there is probably most commonal ground between the United States and India. He saluted India's information technology industry, the core of the country's steady economic growth and the crucible for much of Silicon Valley in California. In a gesture toward the potential for Indo-American trade, Mr. Clinton announced $2 billion in Export-Emport Bank financing for small business exports to India, guarantees of rupee-dominated loans to Indian importers and financing for the purchase of 10 Boeing passenger aircraft by Jet Airways of India, a new domestic airline. The export-import financing still remains low compared, for example, to the $50 billion in direct investment from the bank in China last year. This was the last full day of Mr. Clinton's visit to India, and after having dealt with tricky strategic and political questions, it seemed appropriate that the president should concentrate on the economy, the area where there is probably most commonality between the United States and India. For the moment, trade between the two countries is relatively small: only $12 billion last year, compared to $94.9 billion between the United States and China. But it is the potential for dramatic growth, especially with an expanding Indian middle class with a taste for American consumer goods, that excites the administration and American business. The United States is India's largest trading partner, but India, because of its high tariffs and largely state-run economy, accounts for less than 1 percent of American global investments. Accompanied by his secretary for commerce, William Daley, throughout his India trip, Mr. Clinton made clear that he hopes this will change. After touring booths displaying information technology and receiving an Indian driver's license through the Internet, the president spoke at a software center, popularly known as Hi-Tec City, an acronym for Hyderabad Information Technology-Engineering Consultancy City. A number of American computer companies, including Microsoft, Oracle and Toshiba have set up shop here, alongside new Indian giants and smaller start-ups. In extolling Indian achievements in information technology, Mr. Clinton cited some of the world's computer superstars: Vinod Khosla, who helped build Sun Microsystems and Vinod Dahm, who created the Pentium chip. India was "fast becoming one of the world's software superpowers," Mr. Clinton said, proving that "in a globalized world, developing nations not only can succeed, developing nations can lead." The number of Internet users in India was set to grow 10 times in the next four years, he said. The work of India's information technology exports had catapulted from $150 million 10 years ago to $4 billion today. The Indian government projects that by 2008, these exports will grow to $85 billion. Most importantly for India, Mr. Clinton said that the significant impact of Indian computer engineers on the American computer industry was now beginning to pay back at home here in India. "We're moving from brain drain to brain gain," the president said. A group, called IndUS Entrepreneurs, whose members include the elite of Indian software engineers in Silicon Valley, estimates that 30 percent of the software engineers in the valley are of Indian origin. Most were educated at India's institutes of technology and came to the United States to give an impetus to the valley. But now, with the Indian economy growing at 6 percent per annum and 10 percent growth within site, some Silicon Valley veterans were beginning to return to India. Mr. Clinton also struck one of his favorite themes about the Internet: that it can be used to lift the poor. India, he told his audience, accounted for 30 percent of the world's software engineers but also 25 percent of the world's malnourished. Thus, the president said, India was in a special position to show how its brains and inventiveness in the new technologies could improve health care and education across the nation's villages. This was "good economics," Mr. Clinton argued. If, for example, villages had computers with educational software -- and printers -- there was a potential for a revolution in education in a country where almost 50 percent of the population remains illiterate. "It would mean among other things that the world's most populous nation would have the world's largest number of educated people and therefore, in no time would have the world's largest economy." Mr. Clinton chose to come to Hyderabad -- one of the three urban centers that make up India's "Silicon Triangle" -- in part because of Chandrababu Naidu, the chief minister of the State of Andhra Pradesh, where the city is located. The bearded, 49-year-old Mr. Naidu effusively introduced Mr. Clinton today before an audience of Indian computer entrepreneurs gathered in the atrium of Hi-Tec City's building. The kind of political leader that the president admires, Mr. Naidu appeals to the growing urban middle class of India with his ideas such as making his state another Singapore within 20 years. He is in favor of cutting state subsidies, courting private investment and spending more on education and rural development. His party is a powerful member of the Hindu-Nationalist-led coalition that won the national elections last October and Washington believes that Mr. Naidu represents the next generation of national leaders, and perhaps a future prime minister. As a gesture towards the potential for Indo-American trade, Mr. Clinton announced $2 billion in export-import bank financing for small business exports to India, guarantees of rupee-dominated loans to Indian importers and financing for the purchase of 10 Boeing passenger aircraft by Jet Airways of India, a new domestic airline. The export-import financing still remains low compared to the $50 billion in direct investment from the bank in China last year. On a smaller scale, Mr. Clinton said the United States Agency for International Development would launch a $5-million program to expand Internet access to rural areas in India. INDIA
AND USA DRAWN TOGETHER BY POWER OF GLOBAL ECONOMICS
(excerpts) It's been a long time since a President of the United States had the chance to admire the world's most stunning memorial - the Taj Mahal. In the cold war days, India tended to line up with the Soviet Union. Mutual suspicion meant the US president just wasn't welcome in India. Now President Clinton is thinking more of the future. There's enormous untapped potential within the Indian market itself. The demand for Indian software engineers is huge, and there is a huge supply there, ready to meet that demand in the US.Over the next 20 years India will do what China did over the last 20 years - emerge as one of the great economic powers of the world.
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