FM meets Geithner, Bernake to strengthen Indo-US ties

Finance minister P Chidambaram today met US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner and US fed chief Ben Bernake in Delhi for the third round of US-India economic and financial partnership summit. Geithner and his US counterparts raised a toast to the policy decisions like allowing FDI in multi-brand retail, proposing 49% FDI in insurance and pensions and bringing tax clarity through reports of the Shome Panel, reports CNBC-TV18.

Timothy Geithner, US treasury secretary, says that no one understands the challenges of doing those things more than the people who are leading India right now.
That’s the US treasury secretary saluting the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his team for the reforms blitzkrieg seen in the past one month. Speaking to India Inc, Geithner made no bones about his support for the slew of decisions on FDI as well as the initiative to clarify tax laws
“If you look beneath that the design of the changes on the investment side, investment changes, investment design investment approvals, tax, finance, fiscal, they just show a lot of confidence”, says Geithner.
Earlier today, Geithner met finance minister P Chidambaram along with his colleague, Ben Bernake, the head of US Federal and exchanged notes on their respective economies. On his part, Chidambaram put forth Indian's concerns on the third round of quantitative easing.
P Chidambaram, finance minister, says that we did discuss the quantitative easing. I raised the concern that it may impact commodity prices. And commodity prices may rise. There is also off course a beneficial side. Some of that money may come to India. We need to balance both advantages and disadvantages
While Chidambaram, Geithner and Bernake wrapped up their discussions in Delhi, they will now meet in Tokyo, for the annual meeting of the IMF and World Bank. And European Recovery will top their agenda.
"At the meetings in Tokyo, firstly I would like to hear from Eurozone ministers on what they are doing and how they hope to resolve the crisis. It won't be correct to say we would press them to do this or do that," says Chidambaram.
Hopefully, one will get to hear a concrete plan of action from European finance ministers on the eurozone recover.