US industrialists interested to increase business in India

Mumbai, Nov 29 (UNI) The US industrialists, who are interested in increasing their business in India, expressed concerned about the certain barriers that often stop them from doing so.

Most of the participants of the two-day US-India Business Summit, which began here today, are of the view that the Government of India must take certain stringent steps to remove the barriers in the forms like strict regulations that are haunting them the most.

Scott J Horne, Vice President-Government Relations and General Counsel of Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, one of the 238- member business delegation from U S, attending the summit, told UNI there are certain regulations that have been imposed by the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) in India that often create roadblock before the US industrialists from doing their business here.

Giving an example, he said the DGFT norm says that all the scrap traders must get themselves registered with it before doing business in India which sometimes creates barrier before us from entering the country. Hence he suggested the Government of India should reconsider on the subject and make the regulation more practical and reasonable.

Mr Geno Paul Rolichand, another US industrialist from the US who started manufacturing industrial garments in Chennai under the MPE brand two and half years ago, has his plans to expand his business in India by 50 per cent within next eight months and triple it within next three years. However, he says sometimes applying theory on practical ground on my employees seems to be difficult thanks to the persisting differences in thinking. So far, he has employed 140 personnel including managerial positions and all of them are Indians. Commenting about the ongoing summit, he said,''Major driving force for an industrialist is of making contacts and that way I find the summit quite useful''. Hari Patro, President and CEO of National Systems Consulting, who is a part of the delegation, is also of the same view.

US Under Secretary of Commerce, Franklin L Lavin who is heading the delegation, suggested for lifting of ownership caps and opening the Indian economy to international participation will bring greater efficiencies and help Indian consumers.

However Union Minister of State for Industry Ashwani Kumar said that being a coalition government at the Centre, we have to take our allies in confidence before taking any such step.

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