GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt asserted that the growing economies of emerging countries will help prevent another global recession.
His comments were made during a recent visit to India, where he announced a $200 million investment in a new manufacturing facility in the western city of Pune that will create 2,000 jobs.
Another world recession "is not what we see today. I don't think it is what most businesses are seeing today. I think it is a mixture of different sentiments that are going on," Immelt said.
"Clearly, in the developed world -- Europe, the U.S. and Japan -- the economy is slower, but there is reasonable activity there and the emerging world is still quite strong," he said.
Immelt said emerging markets are critical for GE "just as it is for Siemens, United Technologies or Rolls-Royce or any other industrial company."
GE employs about 14,000 people in India and hopes to increase this to 20,000 over the next two to three years.
"We still see robust demand for our infrastructure products in the Indian subcontinent," he said. "We will continue to focus on aviation, transportation, energy and health care to grow our business, which had seen about 30% increase last year."
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2011
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