India, he said, has a 5 per cent growth rate but needs to speed it up to 7 to 8 per cent to achieve real growth. Economic reform would be greatly helped by a lowering of bureaucratic control, he said, adding that he was encouraged by the move of revenue secretary Nand Kumar Singh to the Prime Minister's Office. A tough but reform-minded secretary in the PMO is a positive sign. One of the setbacks to the Indian economy, said Celeste, was the wary view Indian businessmen took of global competition. But sectors such as information systems, comparable with American operations, have been opened up with great results.
Information technology can make India a backroom for any operation in the United States.
Real relations between the two countries, he said, are not to do with governments but with the flow of human beings.