Virginia is bullish on doing business with India
For reasons ranging from progress on Europe's debt crisis to a slowly improving housing market to slightly less gridlock in Congress, the economy and the job market appear better able to withstand setbacks than they were in 2011.
Virginia and Maryland, two states surrounding the American capital, are vying with each other to woo India for investment and to boost exports to one of the fastest growing world economies.
"We believe that for Virginia. India represents a lot of potential," state secretary of agriculture and forestry Todd P. Haymore told a group of foreign journalists during a visit to the state capital.
"There are some barriers to entry that India has in place that will make it somewhat difficult," he said. "But we are so bullish on India," Haymore said.
Last November Virginia's Republican governor Bob McDonnell chose India and Israel to lead his administration's third international marketing mission since coming to office two years ago. He then appointed an agricultural trade representative in Delhi and a general trade representative in Mumbai.
"So I would like to know which other state in the US has two representative offices on the ground in India," he retorted when asked who took the first initiative to attract India, Virginia or Maryland.
"We were ahead of O'Malley," Haymore said noting that Maryland's Democratic governor Martin O'Malley's trade mission to India resulting in $60 million in business deals came weeks after the visit of McDonnell.
"Over the course of time it's going to reap some rewards for us," he said. "It's a two way street. When we go to India, for example, and we are trying to get an Indian company to invest in Virginia, we are also talking to Indian companies about buying our products."
Among agricultural products, the top export prospects to India at this time are apples, wood products, soybean oils, and wine, he said.
In China too, which is Virginia's second leading export customer purchasing $200 million worth of agricultural goods annually, the state has representative offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
"So we are bullish on India and China, two largest economies in the world, and right now two of the fastest economies in the world."
Echoing Haymore, Virginia Economic Development Partnership Programme Manager- Business Development Warren Hammer said: "There better be a good reason for companies to go to Maryland when we are sitting here."
In the last ten years international companies have announced more than 34,000 new jobs representing an investment of $ 5.6 billion in Virginia, he said, noting that for the third time in five years, CNBC had ranked Virginia as "America's top state for business."
He too was equally bullish on India, which is currently among the five top countries exporting to Virginia furniture, auto parts, paper products, natural rubber and beverages.
With the cost in Chinese labour increasing with the rise of the middle class there, "probably what we talk about China today, we may be talking about India tomorrow and about somebody else in 20 years," Hammer said.