India has initiated a move to explore potential areas for cooperation in business and trade with Pennsylvania.
Neelam Deo, India's consul general in New York, recently met Edward G Rendell, the state governor, in New York to exchange views on possible business and trade partnerships between India and the US, particularly Pennsylvania, in areas of mutual interest.
The Keystone State, which earned a seat this week at the sixth World Trade Organization ministerial conference in Hong Kong where State Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff was part of the US delegation, is keen to pursue expanded market access. As part of that goal Wolff is also visiting Beijing this month to take Pennsylvania' success stories to China to generate new revenue opportunities for Pennsylvania farmers.
"The areas we are looking at to see where we could cooperate are the ones relating to agriculture, particularly the food processing industry in which Pennsylvania has certain strengths," Deo told rediff-India Abroad following the one-hour meeting with Rendell, her first after taking charge in November, at her office December 7.
Pennsylvania, which is home to over 55,000 Indian Americans, has had a representative office in Bangalore since 2001. During the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government in India, officials from Gujarat, including then Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, visited Pennsylvania to explore possible cooperation in agriculture and related fields.
Deo said she did not want to preempt the results of the meeting with Rendell. "We are exploring and will have meetings in future," she said, adding that Pennsylvania is strong in education, too.
She said the idea is also to explore possible cooperation with the state, given that India may soon embark on a massive expansion and upgradation of its airports, ports, railways and roads.
There are many companies owned by Indian Americans in the state, the prominent ones being Cressanda, Nirvana BPO and iGate in the IT sector, and Gupta Permold Corporation in metals and metallurgy.
"Of course, we won't find partners in Pennsylvania for everything India wants to do, but one must remember that Pittsburgh has a big industrial center and Philadelphia is a big financial city. Then there are all these fine educational centers in the state. So, the first need is to explore possibilities for cooperation in all these areas," she said.
Deo said the governor had expressed satisfaction over issues discussed during the initial meeting organised at her request. Deo invited by the governor to visit India.
"We also discussed the possibility of delegations being exchanged in the near future. I think it was a substantive meeting and we will follow up on the various ideas that we discussed at the meeting," she said.
