July 20, 2006	Thursday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 23, 1427

WASHINGTON, July 19: The Bush administration's nuclear accord with India will bring billions of dollars to the US and will create thousands of jobs, a Senate committee was told.

"The opening of the civilian nuclear relationship will deepen the support for American jobs,” Michael Gadbaw, a senior official of General Electric Company, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

“For every order we receive for a one-and-a-half gigawatt power plant, we anticipate US exports in the neighbourhood of $1 billion, which would equate to supporting around 10,000 US jobs," said Mr Gadbaw, the company’s vice-president for international law and policy.

The US media reported on Tuesday that India was expected to spend close to $200 billion on its nuclear infrastructure over the next five years.

General Electric (GE) is one of only four companies worldwide that build the most sensitive components of civilian nuclear power plants like those planned for India. The others include France's state-controlled Areva, the Toshiba Corporation, and Russia's Atomprom.

Other US companies hope to win related contracts to build containment structures for the Indian plants, sell turbines or provide services for the handling of waste.

GE, which had about $1.1 billion in sales in India in 2005, has set a goal of $8 billion in sales there by 2010. It hopes to achieve that mostly through big infrastructure projects providing water, energy and aviation equipment.

Boeing Co signed an $11 billion deal in January to sell 68 planes to Air India. It is also eyeing sales to private airlines there. Boeing also is seeking to supply more than 120 fighter planes to the Indian Air Force. A company official described that as the largest fighter sale for the decade.

Lockheed Martin Corp, another supporter of the US-India Business Council which lobbies for the nuclear deal, also hopes to win contracts from India's military, which has a $23.5 billion budget this year. India has not bought arms from the US since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson cut sales during the India-Pakistan war.

Under the accord, reached during President Bush's visit to India earlier this year, India would be allowed access to US civilian nuclear technology in return for a pledge to open its non-military nuclear facilities to international inspections.