US banking on India, China for faster recovery

Washington, July 8, 2010

The US has expressed confidence that it will continue to make fast recovery from the global economic crisis thanks to its ability to make goods that emerging markets like India and China need. "If you look across the rest of the world - China, India, Brazil, Mexico - emerging markets are very strong now," US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told PBS Wednesday when asked if he was troubled by the downward moves of the stock market recently.

"And America is very good at producing the things those countries need. We have the most-productive workers in the world," he said. "Our great companies operate at the frontier of innovation across the things that are so important to growth around the world."

"And that's one reason why we came out of this crisis more quickly than other countries. And again, we're going to continue to make progress," Geithner said though he saw "a little bit of concern coming from Europe about their capacity to manage through these problems".

"But I think they will manage through their problems in Europe. I think they're taking the steps they need to take to make sure that they're growing again."

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama has declared good progress on his pledge to double US exports over the next five years, saying US sales abroad were up 17 percent in first four months of this year.

"At a time when jobs are in short supply, building exports is an imperative," he said speaking at the White House to a gathering of government and corporate officials.

To this end, his administration is "bringing to bear the full resources of the United States government", Obama said as he named 18 business, labour and government leaders to a new presidential advisory council on exports.

Among them were Charles Kaye, co-president of Warburg Pincus, a former chairman of the US-India Business Council and interim chairman of the Asia Society, and Andrew N. Liveris president of The Dow Chemical Company and a member of the US-India CEO Forum.

Obama said a new body of key administration officials will meet every few months to chart progress, and is set to release a summary report in September.

"This is a nation that has never shied away from the prospect of competition," Obama said. "And we are upping our game for the playing field of the 21st century."

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