US to focus on business abroad - like India, China

Texas Guardian (IANS) Wednesday 22nd February, 2012

Suggesting that rising powers like India, China and Brazil were putting economics at the centre of their foreign policies, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton advocates Economic Statecraft to champion US businesses abroad.

"America's economic strength and our global leadership are a package deal. You're not going to have one without the other," she said in a keynote at a State Department Global Business Conference here Tuesday.

"Rising powers like China, India, and Brazil understand this as well, and we can't sit on the sidelines while they put economics at the centre of their foreign policies," Clinton said.

"We fundamentally believe that increasing trade and growing prosperity will benefit not just our own people, but people everywhere," she said.

"Our economies are interdependent as never before, and so are our fates. America's economic renewal depends to a large degree on the strength of the global economy, and the global economy depends on the strength of America," Clinton said.

Meanwhile, US Commerce Secretary, John Bryson, plans to lead an infrastructure focused trade mission to India next month.

"I will personally be leading an infrastructure-focused mission to India next month," Bryson said at the conference.

Bryson would be traveling to New Delhi, Jaipur and Mumbai, with the aim of cornering a larger share of the estimated $1 trillion investment that India is seeking in the infrastructure sector.

The US is fundamentally different from every other advanced economy, he said. "We're startup people. We break the norms. We're innovators. We're willing to take chances on new ideas," he said.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)