US-India Strategic Partnership Forum President and CEO Mukesh Aghi on Monday emphasised that exports are going to be a major job creator for India as the country moves towards becoming a USD 5 trillion economy. Aghi, who was speaking at an event organised by the USISPF, also stressed that India and the US should continue to strengthen their economic engagements and increase the bilateral trade to USD 500 billion going forward.
He said creating nearly 1.2 million jobs per month is going to be a challenge, highlighting the importance of job creation to ensure there is no social unrest among the youth.
“As India’s economy goes from 4 to 5 trillion dollars, one of the biggest job creators is going to be exports because we have a challenge and the challenge is how do we create 1.2 million jobs (in India) a month and unless we are able to meet that objective we will start seeing some kind of social unrest among the youth itself…,” Aghi said.
“So I think it is important to keep on driving the (bilateral) trade objective of USD 500 billion moving forward,” he added.
The USISPF President and CEO shared that 5 million Indian Americans currently reside in the US, comprising roughly 1.5 per cent of its population. However, they contribute nearly 6 per cent to the nation’s GDP.
“So in every aspect, from people to people, economic, technologically and also geo-politically, these two countries (India and the US) are aligned. Yes, we have our road bumps, we have our challenges, but we keep on working with that and what we see with this government, last 10 years they have stepped up. They have basically working with us to make sure that there is much more ease of doing business,” Aghi asserted.
The bilateral trade between India and the US stood at USD 118.3 billion in 2023-24. Washington was the top trading partner of New Delhi during 2021-22 and 2022-23.
However, China emerged as the largest trading partner of India with USD 118.4 billion two-way commerce in 2023-24, slightly edging past the US, according to the data of economic think tank GTRI.