US to focus on business in tier II, III cities in India

With Indo-US bilateral trade poised to touch the $50-billion mark, the United States is keen to tap business opportunities emanating from Tier II and III cities which are not yet on the world radar, a senior US government official said.

"Business people from all over the world come to Mumbai, Delhi and other important cities throughout India. But we want American business to be the first to come to Pune, Nagpur and any other city that is not on the world radar yet," US under secretary of commerce for International Trade, Francisco J Sanchez, told reporters here today.

Sanchez is here on a three-day trade policy trip and will inaugurate the Growth in Emerging Metropolitan Sectors (GEMS) conference in Pune tomorrow. This visit is ahead of US President Barack Obama's visit to India in November.

The International Trade Administration's new GEMS will focus on building commercial ties between the US and India's emerging cities.

"In implementing President Obama's National Export initiative, we hope that India and the US will reap the rewards of increased trade and investment in terms of job creation and an improved standard of living," Sanchez said.

While there is an immense opportunity for the US across sectors, Sanchez said that infrastructure and energy provided a tremendous business potential.

"Infrastructure provides tremendous business opportunity as the US has great expertise, products and services. The second area which provides good opportunity is the energy sector and within energy, the alternative energy segment has a tremendous potential for growth," he said.

When asked the US' take on India's plan to introduce a civil liability clause in the nuclear bill, he said the US government and business community is pleased that the sub-continent is focused on the civil liability issue. 

"However, there are concerns on how it is structured and it provides too much uncertainty for many parts of our civil nuclear sector. I think we would like see more work done on the issue to provide certainty for the civil nuclear sector," he said, adding "uncertainty here means when there is concern about unlimited liability." 

Asked about visa restrictions (H1 visa) imposed by America, Sanchez said in any important mature relationship there will be disagreement and conflict. "How we manage these tensions is very important," he said.