New Delhi: Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu Tuesday pitched for a strong Indo-US strategic economic ties saying it will be beneficial for both the countries and also help in promoting regional and global peace.
"If India and US have strong strategic economic partnership, it will immensely benefit both the countries...," Prabhu said while addressing a seminar 'India-US 2015: Partnership for Peace and Prosperity' here.
Highlighting the need for peace, he said, prosperity was not possible without peace.
"Prosperity is all that we aspire. I don't think it is possible without peace. It is a paradox but it is a reality. You cannot get big investment in any part of the world if there is no peace. You can make investment only when you have prosperity. You actually have a situation while we need to work on both at the same time,"
He said the growth potential of the economy gets affected without peace in the world.
"Therefore, we feel India and US must partner together, to find out how we can promote global peace, regional peace as well as peace in the respective countries."
Prabhu, further said, without peace it was difficult to focus on the issue of development.
"It is not only peace in the back home but also peace on the region. If you have problems in the region then you have to divert your resources to meet the emergency," he said, adding peace was paramount for both the countries.
The Railway Minister stressed that establishing peace in the region was in the interest of both the countries, "because India and US could become victim of some of the threats that we face today in the world. It does not matter whether US is number one victim or India is number one."
Pitching for the US investment, Prabhu said when a country makes investment in another country, obviously investors want economic return.
He said sometimes, investments made by a country in another country poses a "strategic challenge... By virtue of acquired economic power and, technological advancements made due to investments made by that country."
Assuring that India would not pose a challenge to the US, he said "any investment (made in India), technologically financially or managerial, was not going to pose any challenge to the US. Therefore, it is just an investment which will give you huge dividend and not diminishing returns."
Prabhu further said prosperity of India was a not challenge to US and sought promotion of Indo-US partnership, which would enable the US to concentrate on where it should be withdrawing its strategic assets from Asia.
"The good example would be US-India partnership. It would be promoting peace and also help US to withdraw some of these huge strategic assets that they have parked in Asia. India would be able to play a very formidable role. US would be able to concentrate where it should be," he said.
Prabhu said global threat perception was rising and the US and India were going to be the worst affected countries.
"Therefore, many of those who are posing challenges to both of our countries, they consider we are the same. They consider the US and India are same as far as their perceptions are concerned they want to make sure both the countries do not remain strong. Therefore, it is in our mutual interest that we must maintain global peace as well as regional peace." he said.
Recalling US' contribution to green revolution in India, Prabhu said "now we are waiting for the next revolution," and added that there was a scope for US investment in clean energy sector.
"If we can have strategic partnership on cleaner energy it will be immensely beneficial. India would benefited and the US could also benefit simultaneously. By doing that we actually create immense opportunity of investment for US companies in India, and in turn Indian entrepreneurship could leverage it through infrastructure development available in the country," he said.
He said US and India already have Asia pacific partnership on clean energy.
"But going beyond that if you promote huge amount of which is relatively clean. If you produce energy by gas it will be cleaner than coal. If you produce energy from solar it will be cleaner than gas," he said.
Referring to forthcoming US Presidential election, he said that debate will start during the next US presidential campaign that what should be the US strategic priorities?
"Whether the US should go as far as Asia, or should not go there. But to make that happen and the compulsion that the US both White House and Pentagon, as well as the State Department faces, that if you withdraw then what would happen to the US interest."
