AMCHAM Smart City Interaction with USTDA\’s Technical Advisory Services Team – 30th November 2015

AmCham’s Smart City Consortium members had a detailed interaction with USTDA and it’s smart city specialists, the technical advisory team, at ACSA, U.S. Embassy on November 30th. The technical advisory team will advise their Indian partners on best practices for integrated smart city planning and infrastructure development. These experts led by Mr. Doug Shuster, President and CEO of Emerging Markets Infrastructure (EMI), interacted with our smart city group members, to understand the on-the-ground action and extent of involvement of U.S. companies in various smart city programs across a number of cities in India. Based on the understanding of the U.S. companies’ capabilities and readiness to bid for and offer solutions, the technical team will be visiting three cities to do a needs assessment survey and provide on the ground support in Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan to recommend solutions to their smart city planning and infrastructure development objectives.

A number of issues and challenges as presented under the smart city campaign, for a robust U.S. private sector engagement were discussed – especially challenges of cost competencies, procurement policies and implementation level capacity deficiencies. It was decided that a core group of interested members would lead engagements in several identified cities for which a city-specific approach will be taken and capabilities to counter the needs of those cities will be presented. Simultaneously companies wherever feasible, will make efforts to engage with technical consultants who are assisting the state governments in drawing up their smart city master plans.

AMCHAM Defense Committee Meeting with Secretary, Defence Production, Ashok Kumar Gupta – 30th November 2015

AmCham Defense Committee members called upon Secretary, Defence Production, Shri. A K Gupta on 30th November, 2015. He was accompanied by Shri Harbanslal Khera, Joint Secretray, DOMW and his team of OSD. The secretary made a presentation to the team on the initiatives taken by the Ministry of Defense for facilitating easier discharge of offset obligations. The team members were quite pleased with the positive amendments undertaken by the ministry to make the policy more progressive and thanked the secretary for his leadership.

AMCHAM Pharmaceuticals Committee Meeting/Call – 27th November 2015

A meeting/call of the AmCham Pharmaceuticals Committee was organized on November 27, 2015 in New Delhi under the Chairmanship of Mr. Sanjiv Navangul, Chairman, AmCham Pharmaceuticals Committee and MD, Janssen India and Mr. Nick Mitchell, Co-Chair, AmCham Pharmaceuticals Committee and MD, Phenomenex. Other members who joined included representatives from APCO, KPMG, 3M, MSD and Abbott. Mr. Gaurav Mendiratta, Sector Manager, Medical Devices participated from the AmCham Secretariat.

The objective of the meeting/call was to discuss engagement of the AmCham Pharma Committee members with various state governments in coming months. Telangana and Maharashtra were the two states which the committee members decided to approach and engage. Members also deliberated on various other issues like ease of doing business, India Pharma Expo 2016 and increasing the membership base of AmCham Pharma Committee during the meeting/call.

AMCHAM SCL Core Committee Meeting/Call – 26th November 2015

The Core Committee meeting (concall) of the Amcham Supply Chain & Logistics Committee’s discussion included updates and ideas for the forthcoming SCL Committee event on 16th December 2015 in Mumbai. The event will focus on three key topics: 1. SCM competencies 2. Industrial and logistics services 3. Best practices in SCM at E.I. DuPont. Industry experts will join as speakers from Becton Dickinson, CBRE and DuPont will all be sharing the platform on the occasion.

It was decided to undertake a short survey with committee members to receive feedback on the activities organized in 2015 and set the tone for the year 2016. The meeting concluded post active brainstorming and idea assimilation. Members were thanked for support and valuable inputs.

Roundtable on India’s Economic Outlook – What Lies Ahead! – 19th November 2015

The American Chamber of Commerce in India in association with Bank of America Merill Lynch organized a Roundtable on India’s Economic Outlook – What Lies Ahead! on Thursday, 19th November 2015.

The session began with Ms. Surabhi Wahal, Regional Director- Western Region, AmCham India, welcoming the participants and the session’s speaker, Mr. Indranil Sengupta. It was followed by Mr. Asit Bhatia, Managing Director, Global Corporate & Investment Banking, Bank of America, who ushered in the topic through his opening remarks.

Mr. Indranil Sengupta, India Economist; Director- DSP Merrill Lynch Ltd., shared his expert views on the country’s economic outlook beginning with India’s growth story as the 2nd largest emerging market after China in the 2015 economy and the probability of India’s overtaking France in becoming the 5th largest economy by 2019. Through his presentation, Mr. Sengupta stated the improvement in macro- economic numbers in the last 2 years due to the move in trend from an easy monetary policy to an expectation of a tightened monetary policy. Global and domestic factors include investments, tightening of the RBI, the effect of the harvest seasons, the rural demand, low MSP hikes and the steady fall in rural wage growth greatly impacts GDP. The expectation that the 7th Pay Commission will stimulate consumption demand by 0.3-0.5% of GDP due to factors such as lower oil process, the doubling of car and housing loan limits and the government’s implementation of the OROP scheme for the armed service were also discussed. Among the numerous points put forth through the presentation, Mr. Sengupta also shared his views on the liquidity crunch and stated that a lot would depend on how the RBI addresses it. Mr. Sengupta shared his views on the relative value for when Fed hikes, that the U.S. recovery is positive for India due to the multiplier effect that it has on Indian exports, that the RBI can cut even as Fed hikes and that the INR over-evaluation fears are overdone. The focus of the government – reforms to follows BJP manifesto, focus on irrigation, re-urbanization (a la the Gujarat model) and the Swaminathan formula that supports rural demand were discussed. Mr. Sengupta also stressed on the 5 point strategy for revival of the CapEx cycle – road projects, power, housing, easier infra-financing norms and FDI. The interactive and energetic Q&A that followed answered questions on economic reforms, the impact of the governance and IPR.

The event concluded with Mr. Mahesh Krishnamurti, Managing Director, Resources Global Professionals Pvt. Ltd. giving the vote of thanks to the participants with special gratitude to Bank of America Merill Lynch and to Mr. Indranil Sengupta for sharing his expertise and for building such an engaging and passionate environment around the table. He commended Mr. Sengupta for his assertive and pragmatic views that brought out so factually the short term and long term challenges for the Indian economy and for bringing to light very tangible actionables that can be achieved with the support of AmCham.

AMCHAM Western Region Committee Meeting – 19th November 2020

The AmCham Western Region Committee met on 19th November 2015 at the Bank of America office in Mumbai. The meeting began with Ms. Kaku Nakhate, Chairperson of the Amcham WR Committee welcoming members and sharing an update on the recently concluded AmCham National Executive Board Meeting held on 17th November 2015 in Mumbai.

Three proposed events for the first quarter of 2016 were discussed; meeting with the office of CM Maharashtra- Mr. Devendra Fadnavis/meeting in Pune with senior government officials; a CSR focused event and an event on ‘How has brand India changed in the past year’.

Members expressed interest in partnering with AmCham sectoral committees for industry specific events that will interest and benefit member companies.

During the course of the meeting, the minutes of the last WRC meeting held on 15th May were officially signed by Ms. Kaku Nakhate.

Ms. Surabhi Wahal, Regional Director, AmCham Western Region, shared a brief update on the events that were organized by the western region during the year 2015, as well as a plan of action for the forthcoming year.

To gain greater traction to events in the coming year, members also discussed methods of communicating and engaging regional members.

The meeting closed with Ms. Kaku Nakhate sharing the closing remarks and thanked the members for their valuable contribution.