Nikki Haley, born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa, was the first woman of Indian origin to become a governor in a US state and is also the youngest current governor in the US. She is also seen as likely Vice-Presidential candidate if Donald Trump comes to power. Since taking office, Haley is working feverishly to attract Indian companies to invest in the US. In a conversation with journalists at her office in Columbia, South Carolina, Haley talked about what she's doing when it comes to attracting investments from India and what she things are the biggest challenges for American companies to invest in India. Edited excerpts: 

US is the largest economy yet it is not among the top three countries in terms of investments made in India. What are the reasons for that?

In my first year in administration, we talked about going to India. It started early on but with India, you have to be very conscious of the politics and the people and the challenges. When I look at companies that want to do business in India, they very much realise that in India you have to know someone and to get things done, you have to know people. That's scary for them.

In India, the government is very strong and so you have to know someone in government to be able to be successful in business and that makes American companies nervous. Having said that, once they get those contacts, they know the talent is there. So, everybody admires the talent in India and everybody admires the skill-set in India.

There seems to be increasing protectionism in the US from the Federal Government in sectors including pharmaceuticals, steel, solar, etc. How do such restrictions impact your efforts to attract investment in your state?

We have been very aggressively going to Indians to let them know that my trip (to India) wasn’t an end. My trip was only the beginning and we want to see that happen. The things that are happening in DC when you see regulations, when you see any of the restrictions like that, it is not the culture of South Carolina to have that.

So what we do is we counter balance it. So when a company comes to South Carolina, we make sure they have a trained workforce. We make sure that they have a site ready with all the infrastructure they need.

How important is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's upcoming US visit to you? There are his critics who say such trips often don’t translate into business.

I think that he has the responsibility to sell India and he has the responsibility to create business relationships with other countries and that’s why it will be interesting to hear what he has to say because we know they are going through their challenges. I think a lot of people want to know what is he doing to really spur business between the two countries. What more can we see.

There are 1,200 companies in South Carolina but only six from India. Have you been too late to tap into Indian investments?

The fact that we have six already is actually very exciting for me because it’s moved faster than what we normally see. So we think that this is going to be great and successful.

We’ve been in Europe for 40 years, we’ve been in Asia for about 18 years. We have just come to India. India is an untapped resource. Also, we saw the economy of India ready now to move outside of its borders for the first time. So we're building relationships.

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