Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have personal meetings with the Chairmen of Boeing and Goldman Sachs, the CEOs of BlackRock, General Electric and KKR, and the President and CEO of IBM during his forthcoming visit to the US.
A spokesperson of the External Affairs Ministry added that during his visit, between September 26 and September 30, Modi will have a breakfast meeting with CEOs and other top officials of 11 leading companies, including the Executive Chairman of Google, the co-founder of the Carlye Group, and the CEOs of Cargill, Citi Group, Merck and Co, Caterpillar, Warburg Pincus, MasterCard and Pepsi. The meeting is scheduled for September 29. The combined market cap of these companies, excluding Warburg, is around $1.2 trillion.
In addition, the US-India Business Council will host a reception for the Prime Minister where he is expected to meet 300-400 business people, the spokesman said.
These three events are among the 35 engagements lined up for Modi during his four-day visit to the US. Modi will meet President Barrack Obama twice (on September 29 and 30), and also Vice-President Joe Biden, who will host a lunch. The lunch will also be attended by Secretary of State John Kerry. The US Secretary of Defence, Chuck Hagel, will call on the Prime Minister.
Modi will address the Indian community at Madison Square Garden on September 28. On the same day, India’s Ambassador to the US will host a dinner.
Not to meet Sharief To a question about the possibility of a meeting between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief in the US, the spokesman said there were “no plans for it”.
“We see Modi’s first visit to New York and Washington as PM as a signal of India’s abiding commitment to multilateralism and of our desire to build on growing convergences in India-US ties both in areas where we can work together and in areas where we can do more for each other,” the spokesman said when asked how India views Modi’s US visit.
During his stay in New York, Modi will address the United Nations General Assembly and meet with the President of Sri Lanka and the Prime Ministers of Bangladesh and Nepal on the sidelines of the UN meeting.