By Muslim Mirror Staff:
Washington D.C. ; Shedding lights on India-US relations, renowned Indian American businessman and politician Lutfi Hassan, who heads Apex Group of Companies in the US, called for eliminating trade barriers between the two countries. Mr Hassan is also founder of the Housed based South Asian Chamber of Commerce (SACC).
Speaking during a virtual Indo-US Partnership Vision Summit, Mr Hassan said, “India’s large markets, economic growths and progress towards development make it an essential market for many US exporters.” The event was attended by top business leaders from both the countries besides Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari, Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani and parliamentarian Jayant Sinha, chairperson of Parliamentary Standing Committee for Finance.
Mr Hasan hailed US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for collectively working towards strengthening trade relations between the two countries.
“The greatness of Indian business people in terms of their hard work and dedication is unmatched with any other country and the reason why India is such an important partner for the United States,” Mr Hassan said.
He added this spirit is reflected by the drives and the burning desires of the folks at IMC Chambers [Indian Merchants’ Chamber] to develop their SEMES and further develop their trade relations with the US.
Covid pandemic: Need for greater cooperation in health sector
Mr Hassan claimed India continued to provide quality PPE equipment, trained healthcare officials and increased exports, directly competing with China. The panellists also discussed various perspectives of the Covid-19 pandemic in an attempt to figure out opportunities out of it.
Oyster Capital Management founder and CEO Dr Atul Joshi said that the world woke up to the traditional medicines’ knowledge after the coronavirus outbreak but added that the traditional system lacked scientific backing.
Mr Joshi called for discovering the symbiotic relationship between modern and traditional methods of medication. He urged pharmaceutical company Wockhardt’s head Dr Murtaza Khorakiwala to share his opinion on it. He said there are two fundamental issues with traditional medicines. “The entire allopathic industry works on patent-driven innovations. Patent protection makes a very viable business model to invest a large amount of money in research so that one can recover that. But patent protection is not possible with respect to traditional medicines because they are known. There is no novelty in them.”
Secondly, allopathic medicines are based on very vigorous scientific studies but this kind of scientific vigour of data and information is not available with traditional medicines. “While there are challenges, there are great advantages of traditional medicines also,” he observed. Highlighting the positive side of traditional medicines, he cited the example of Yoga.
All the panellists emphasised on developing India-US relations and figuring out ways to strengthen the business sector, which has suffered a lot due to the pandemic in both the countries.
Mr. Hassan has been recently elected as the chairman Gandhi Mandela Foundation (American- chapter). He serves on the board of Gandhi Eternal Museum-Houston. He has been a US Presidential appointee serving two past presidents. Mr. Hassan is also a co-founder of South Asian Chamber Of Commerce-USA.
