High Tech Mission to India
The mission will focus on four industry sectors – civil nuclear trade, defense and security equipment/systems/services, civil aviation, and information and communications technology. It is designed to take advantage of these four strategic growth sectors and advance the discussion of U.S. market access, regulatory, and export control issues.
Civil Nuclear
This mission would represent the first Department-led civil-nuclear event in five years to India. Industry assessments suggest the Indian nuclear power market in total is worth as much as $150 billion. In September 2009, the Government of India (GOI) officially designated two site locations for U.S. commercial nuclear technology. The Indian cabinet reserved sites at Mithi Virdi in Gujarat and at Kovada in Andhra Pradesh to host the U.S. “reactor parks.” The U.S. government has worked closely with the GOI to implement the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation agreement. U.S. reactor companies are on track to do business in India’s expanding civil nuclear sector which provides opportunities along the civil nuclear supply chain for small- and medium-size civil nuclear suppliers.
Defense and Security
Over the next three years, India is expected to procure more than $10 billion in state-of-the-art commercial and homeland security technology products, solutions, and services for border protection, marine security, counter insurgency, city surveillance, intelligence infrastructure, and other critical security infrastructure needs. The United States and India are closely collaborating on homeland security through our five-pillared Strategic Dialogue and a Joint Working Group on Counter-Terrorism (CTJWG). This homeland security component of the CTJWG offers us a unique opportunity to integrate U.S. business into the bilateral partnership with India by creating a private sector-public sector advisory forum within the government-to-government CTJWG. It will focus on translating the policy cooperation and goodwill between the two countries into business opportunities and export growth for U.S. companies.
Civil Aviation
Currently ranked ninth in the global civil aviation market, India’s rapidly growing aviation sector is expected to become one of the top five civil aviation markets in the world over the next five years. Domestic passenger travel grew by 22 percent to 25.7 million passengers between January-June 2010 compared with 21.1 million passengers in January-June 2009, with private airlines accounting for about 75 percent of the domestic aviation market. Both Boeing and Airbus forecast India’s demand for aircraft to exceed 1,000 aircraft worth more than $130 billion over the next 20 years. To keep pace with this rapid expansion, the GOI is planning multibillion dollar infrastructure investments to handle an estimated 580 million passengers in the next five to seven years.
Cooperation between the U.S. and Indian Governments in civil aviation has grown steadily since the signing of the U.S.-India Open Skies Agreement in 2005. With the launch of the U.S.-India Aviation Cooperation Program (ACP) in 2007, the United States and India established a forum for unified communication between the GOI and U.S. public and private sectors active in India with the goal of identification and support of the GOI’s civil aviation sector modernization priorities. Early in 2010, the GOI and the United States created the U.S.-India Aviation Security Working Group to increase close cooperation on mutual commercial and security interest. In March, 2010, the inaugural meeting of the U.S.-India High Technology Cooperation Group (HTCG) Civil Aviation Subcommittee was held in Washington, D.C. Among the most important areas of agreement coming from the group’s private sector and government-government sessions were formation of an Airport Infrastructure Working Group (AIWG) tasked with identifying ways to encourage increased U.S. private sector participation in India’s airport development; agreement to increase information exchange on air traffic control (ATC) technology enabling modernization of India’s ATC system; consideration of a civil aviation business development trade mission to India; and collaboration on the development of alternative aviation fuels. The inaugural meeting of the AIWG held on September 30 in New Delhi directly addressed the issue of facilitating U.S. private sector investment in India’s $20 billion dollar civil airport infrastructure development market.
Information and Communications Technology
As part of India’s economic transformation, ICT represents about 11 percent of India’s GDP. Telecom is considered the fastest growing sector, with cellular connections that have surpassed 600 million (with an expectation of reaching 1 billion by 2015). Internet and broadband infrastructure plans are bold and are based on rapid growth projections. In the next five years, the Indian market will reach 500 million fixed-wire line internet connections, with fixed broadband comprising 200 million of the connections. The rapid growth of India’s ICT industry is generating massive, untapped opportunities for U.S. companies. India’s software and services industry accounted for $59.6B in aggregated revenue in FY2008-09, and spending in these sectors is forecast to grow at over 17 percent year on year between 2010 and 2014.
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