By IANS,
Mumbai : Indian Merchants’ Chamber (IMC), a leading industry forum that represents nearly 250,000 businesses in the western region, Wednesday extended its full support to the Manmohan Singh government, which is seeking vote of confidence in parliament July 22 over the Indo-US nuclear deal.
In a letter sent to the prime minister, IMC said the Mumbai business community would stand by the government’s efforts to clinch the nuclear deal.
IMC president N. Chaini said in the letter that India should not shy away from dealing with powerful countries like the US and “entering into agreements” in the national interest.
The letter urges the prime minister to go ahead with the processes needed for “early fruition of the nuclear deal”.
“The entire business community of western region of the country vowed to unequivocally stand by you and your government not because of the fact that the nuclear deal would benefit business communities but because it is entirely in the larger national interest,” IMC said.
It added that IMC had carried out in-house studies and held various panel discussions and seminars on the nuclear deal before arriving at a conclusion.
Chaini said the country “needs to shed all vestiges of its erstwhile isolationist policies which were adapted in the early years of its freedom when India was not economically and technologically strong enough to protect itself from the tentacles of the cold war”.