Clinton Helps Boost U.S.-India Trade Ties

President Clinton promoted trade between the world’s two largest democracies Friday as he concluded a visit to India dominated by his diplomatic efforts to ease tensions in South Asia.

The president said here that more than $4 billion in business agreements were signed this week between U.S. and Indian companies.

The agreements underscored the fact that trade promotion was a core mission of Clinton’s trip even though the threat of another war between India and Pakistan over the contested Himalayan region of Kashmir riveted attention on the president’s attempts to reduce tensions on the subcontinent.

The president is to meet today in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, with Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in October. Clinton is expected to push Musharraf to expeditiously restore democracy to Pakistan and to enter into a dialogue with New Delhi over their differences on Kashmir.

India’s huge, emerging middle class--estimated at 200 million or more people--represents a vast opportunity for U.S. business.

Clinton also announced that the U.S. Export-Import Bank will provide more than $2 billion in financing to small- and medium-sized enterprises in India. Included is $358 million in financing to India’s Jet Airways to buy 10 Boeing 737-800 aircraft, to be delivered next year.

The agreements culminated what Commerce Secretary William M. Daley called “a highly successful” trip to this nation of 1 billion people.

Earlier in the day, Clinton visited Hyderabad, a center of India’s thriving high-tech industry, to tout the economic potential of the information age.

Just 10 years ago, the industry generated only $150 million in services in India. Last year, that number reached $4 billion. And officials here say that in the next four years, the number of Internet users in India will grow by more than 10 times.

“India is fast becoming one of the world’s software superpowers,” Clinton said. He also noted that Indian Americans in the United States run more than 750 high-tech companies in the Silicon Valley.

But as he often does at home, the president also spoke here of the need to expand the circle of prosperity.

“Millions of Indians are connected to the Internet, but millions more aren’t yet connected to fresh water. India accounts for 30% of the world’s software engineers but 25% of the world’s malnourished,” Clinton told business leaders in Hyderabad.

The president also announced Friday that the U.S. Agency for International Development will provide about $5 million to help bring the Internet to schools and businesses in underserved areas in rural India.

“In all the years of recorded human history, we have never had this many opportunities to fight poverty,” Clinton said. “And it is good economics to do so.”