Jetting in with Obama, largest lot of businessmen ever

US president Barack Obama is underscoring the importance of India’s economy by riding into Mumbai with the largest American business mission ever to a single country.

The roster, a veritable Who’s Who of American business, includes Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric, Jim McNerney of Boeing, Honeywell International CEO David Cote, PepsiCo chief Indra Nooyi, McGraw-Hill Companies boss Terry McGraw III and United Technologies CEO Louis Chenevert.

It’s fair to say that, by a significant margin, there has never been so much interest shown by US companies in India during a presidential visit.

“This delegation is the biggest ever in the sheer number of executives. The delegation will include 215 large iconic and mid-sized American companies,” said a spokeswoman for the US-India Business Council, which is sponsoring an entrepreneurship conference on November 6, in Mumbai, to be headlined by Obama and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee.

“It takes several months after a visit to get details about investment decisions but the size of the delegation is normally a good indicator of ultimate impact,” she added.

After ten months of negotiations, India and the United States are nearing completion of a roughly $3.5 billion defence deal that includes the purchase of 10 Boeing C-17s.

The stakes are high as the deal would create badly needed US jobs. If India buys the military transport planes it could keep Boeing’s Long Beach plant open at least a year beyond the now-scheduled closing in early 2013.

“Because this is a government to government negotiation, Boeing is not in a position to know when India and the US will sign a letter of agreement,” Boeing spokesman Jerry Drelling said.

“But we remain hopeful that the (agreement) will be signed by both countries before the end of the year.”

Business marriages are likely to bloom during the course of the longish Delhi-Mumbai visit but US officials say the long-term impact would be far greater.

The excitement among US companies ahead of the India visit is bubbling, stoked by news that General Electric landed a deal on Monday with India’s Reliance Power to supply $750 million worth of turbine equipment for a 2,400-megawatt expansion of its Samalkot plant.

GE boss Jeffrey Immelt has set an ambitious company target of boosting sales in India to $8 billion annually by 2010.

The November 6-9 India trip takes on added significance for Immelt who has re-jigged his India team after GE’s revenue in India fell to $1.6 billion last year from $2.1 billion a year earlier, even though GE Energy’s sales rose in that period.

Along with GE, other iconic US companies also have their eyes on India which boasts the fifth-largest economy in the world, with an annual gross domestic product of $3.56 trillion, growing at a rate of 8.5% annually.

Meanwhile, Indian business leaders said any enlarged scope for US companies in retail, finance or insurance sector should be linked to India getting unrestricted access to the US markets for onshore and offshore software services, including visas for Indian professionals.