Indo-US CEOs forum to meet on June 22

The second meeting of the Indo-US CEOs Forum is slated to be held in Washington on June 22 to give impetus to the economic ties between the two countries, following last week's strategic dialogue.

A top US official said on Tuesday that several cabinet- level ministers from both the nations are scheduled to attend the meeting.

"One of the real drivers in the (Indo-US) relationship has been that we've created a CEOs Forum with top CEOs on both sides, who are going to come together on June 22 here in

Washington," assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia Robert Blake said in response to a question.

"With several top ministers on each side, the CEOs would present their recommendations on how the two governments can help reduce barriers for greater trade and investment on both sides," he added.

The CEOs Forum was reconstituted in November 2009, during the state visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the US.

The first meeting of the CEOs Forum was held on November 23 on the eve of the PM's meeting with US President Barack Obama at the White House.

The CEO Forum is co-chaired by the Tata Sons chairman, Ratan Tata, and David Cote, chairman of Fortune 500 Honeywell.

While, Tata heads the 12-member Indian delegation to the CEO Forum, Cote leads the US-side.

The American members of the CEOs Forum, include the Citi Groups CEO Vikram Pandit and Indra Nooyi of Pepsico, Louis Chenevert from United Technologies, and Andrew Liveris of Dow Chemicals.

Indian corporate leaders in the CEO Forum, include Sunil Bharti Mittal chairman and CEO of Bharti Enterprise; State Bank of India chairman O P Bhatt; Venu Srinivisan of TVS Motors; S Gopalarishnan from Infosys; Chanda Kochhar MD and CEO of ICICI; Reliance's Mukesh Ambani; Biocon chairman and MD Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and Deepak Parikh from HDFC.