Setting the right tone before the visit of US President Barack Obama, senior government officials will meet representatives from top US companies such as Cisco, Amazon, Heinz and Morgan Stanley on Thursday to discuss and sort out problems faced by them in India.

“More than 20 US companies will be present at the meeting. Many have already submitted a synopsis of the issues they want to take up,” a Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) official told BusinessLine .

The inter-ministerial committee to fast track investment proposals from the US in India chaired by DIPP Secretary Amitabh Kant was set up earlier this month to assure American companies that their problems in India would be solved in a systematic way.

All relevant ministries including Economic Affairs, Revenue, Environment & Forest, Power, Defence Production, Telecom, Railways, Civil Aviation, Commerce and External Affairs are part of the committee.

The problems spelled out by the US companies in their submissions are varied.

US networking equipment manufacturer Cisco has issues with imports of electronic equipment as there are several restrictions on import of used electronics. Processed food manufacturing company Heinz is not able to get food safety certificates for some of its products.

Morgan Stanley, in its representation, has said that telecom regulations in the country were acting as an impediment for implementation of FIPB approvals.

“There are also several defence equipment manufacturing companies such as Hughes Network that are facing problems in India due to the offset policy,” the official said. US-based e-commerce company Amazon, not surprisingly, wants the Government to allow foreign direct investment in B2C operations.

“The problems are of two types. Some are procedural where companies have issues related to environmental clearance or acquisition of land. The other is policy related where problems are to be sorted out by changing policies,” the official said.

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