Why in News?

• U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum organised the India leadership summit.

About the summit:

• They briefed the Prime Minister on the outcomes of India Leadership Summit held earlier in the day. The business leaders appreciated the economic and regulatory reforms implemented by the Government in the past four years, and expressed their desire to further deepen their engagements with India to make use of the mutually beneficial opportunities created by the rapidly growing Indian economy.
• The Prime Minister stated that both countries have benefitted in an unprecedented manner through economic engagement. He encouraged US companies to fully avail of the business opportunities in new areas as well, such as start-ups, energy, health care and digital technology.
• According to its findings, US companies contributed over $ 90 billion to India’s GDP (2017) as over 6.6 million jobs are supported by US companies in India (2018). The US is India’s largest trading partner and top export market. It is also India’s top source of FDI with $50 billion worth of flows between 2014 and first quarter of 2018.
• The study also said US companies invested over $ 5.5 billion in R&D in India (2016) and the US companies contributed to over five per cent of total CSR expenditure in India (2017).