Timothy Geithner, the US treasury secretary met with India’s Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee at the second India-US Economic and Financial Partnership meeting. The partnership resulted in the two countries agreeing to improve access to each other’s markets, with the hope that India will become on of the US’ top ten trading partners, reported by the BBC.
Indiais currently the US' twelfth largest trading partner, with bilateral trade of almost $50bn.
Geithner stated “In the United States we aren’t just watching India’s rise as an economic power, we support it. We encourage it. And we want to help advance it. India’s growth is good for us, just as our growth is good for India.”
The relationship is not completely straight forward however, and Geithner claimed that India needs to open up more sectors of its economy to allow trade between the two countries to rise to the next level. "American companies still face barriers in India in sectors such as banking, insurance, manufacturing, multi-brand retail and infrastructure," Geithner said.
Geithner added that these barriers were limiting growth, and preventing job creation in both countries.
However, Mukherjee explained that the political situation in India makes it tricky to introduce reforms in key sectors.
"We do not have a simple, single-party majority in legislature and in parliament," he said.
"We shall have to carry other people with us and we are exactly trying to do that," Mr Mukherjee added.
Geithner stated, “The single most important take away is the commitment of both governments to work hard to expand deepen this relationship.”
What this means for jobs
If this relationship pans out, there will be an overall increase in jobs in India and the US, and with India possibly becoming a top ten trading partner of the US, executives will be required to oversee the increased importing and exporting of goods.
Of particular interest is how the two economic giants will achieve the proposed gains. If the barriers mentioned above are broken down a little, there will be an increased demand for talent with proven cross-border experience in the banking, insurance and manufacturing sectors.
This, along with India’s growing economy, could result in an increased number of executives relocating or returning to India, especially considering the large amount of Indian talent currently working in the US financial markets.
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This article was written by Bella Barda, Emerging Markets Assistant from the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC).
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