New York:
At a 90-minute dinner meeting in New York, top American CEOs told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that they are excited about India, but want him to quicken the pace of reforms.
PM Modi hosted at his hotel, 42 corporate leaders from Fortune 500 companies, with an estimated collective net worth of 4.5 trillion dollars.
The general mood of what he called the $ 4.5-trillion club was, "Continue what you are doing, do it faster," said Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Vikas Swarup.
"We all have concerns about the speed. We want to see more action more quickly but directionally the investments in infrastructure, the energy, vision for the future, bringing the country together, goods and services tax reform, are all extremely positive," said Mark Weinberger of Ernst&Young.
At the meeting, the Prime Minister distributed a one-page summary of his record in office, which highlighted the reforms undertaken so far for ease of doing business, bankruptcies and opening more sectors to foreign direct investment.
"Foreign direct investment all over the world has fallen. But in India, it increased by 40 percent. This reflects confidence in the Indian economy," the prime minister said and added, "Reform in governance is my Number One priority."
"He was very impressive. He understood all the issues. He is doing a lot...I came away very enthusiastic about India," said Hamilton James, President of Blackstone.
Rakesh Sachdev, CEO of Sigma-Aldrich said, "Certainly, we would love to see quicker changes...We understand the process is difficult but the PM made more changes in the beginning of his term than seen in a long time. So, we are very optimistic about the future."
Also among the CEOs who attended, were Indra Nooyi of Pepsico, Ginni Rometty of IBM, Sanjay Mehrotra of San Disk, Ajay Banga of MasterCard, Michael O'Neill of Citigroup, Gary Cohn of Goldman Sachs and Joe Ripp of Time Inc.
Arne Sorenson, the CEO of Marriott, said, "I think the meeting was very positive. PM MOdi is clearly somebody who listens... clearly somebody who is interested in seeing India...perform better and better."
The key points from the meeting he said, were "ease of business...speed of government approvals...speed of decision making...transparency of process," and added, "We came out convinced that we're heading in the right direction."