Pranab on 3-day US visit to sell great Indian growth story

New Delhi, Jun 27: India's Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is all set to embark on a three-day visit to Washington on Monday. The occasion will see India and US discussing key economic issues like management of global capital flows, volatility in exchange rates and financial sector reforms. The empowered Indian delegation will also sell the great Indian growth story to specifically woo US investors.

The Finance Minister's delegation includes, RBI Governor D Subbarao, SEBI Chairman UK Sinha, Economic Affairs Secretary R Gopalan, Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu and several businessmen.

The Finance Minister's itinerary include meetings with American CEO's and other officials as well as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithener. The UPA government had recently announced its Infrastructure Debt Fund guidelines that seeks to welcome long term foreign investors. A statement from the Ministry stated, “Both sides are also likely to discuss issues relating to financial sector reforms including financial regulatory reforms, commodity pricing, financial markets and financial inclusion among others."

Harnessing investor confidence will pose as a tough challenge for the delegation in lieu of the recent scams and scandals that have caught the government off guard. The two countries are also likely to discuss infrastructure financing and macro economic issues including global rebalancing and G-20.

Mukherjee is also expected to deliver a keynote address at the conference on 'US-India Economic and Financial Partnership", organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in collaboration with the Brookings Institute of the US. He will also take part in a Cabinet level meeting of the India-US Financial and Economic Partnership, beside meeting the US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon.

Pranab Mukherjee's string of meetings also include rendezvous with key US economic policy makers including Federal Reserve chairman Ben S Bernanke, Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary L. Schapiro, Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Gary Gensel, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chairman Sheila C Bair. He will also meet the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the US President, Austan Goolsbee.

OneIndia News