CEOs descend on Washington for India talks

Top business executives will descend on Washington next week to talk with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi about how they can work together to steer his economy toward more robust growth. 

Modi and President Obama are scheduled to meet on Monday and Tuesday at the White House. They will spend time in the Oval Office discussing how they can join forces on a broad array of economic, trade, energy and security issues. 

{mosads}Modi also is planning to meet with senior Obama administration officials and top business executives from companies including Ford, IBM, Google, Boeing, General Electric and MasterCard.

While Modi will make the case for U.S. companies to renew their investments in India, business leaders will be asking him to reduce barriers that they say have held them back from selling their products to the massive Indian market. 

For the past several years, business groups have complained about tariff increases, a lack of intellectual property protections and domestic content requirements pushing them away from India. 

Modi says he is prepared to open up his nation’s economy, so business leaders will be looking for assurances he is moving forward.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department will release its September jobs report on Friday morning, the final gauge of the labor market’s health before the November elections. At this point, most economists expect the unemployment rate to remain around 6.1 percent. 

The economy added a lackluster 142,000 jobs in August, but job creation is expected to bounce back in September. 

A pickup in jobs and economic growth hasn’t done much to bolster the hopes of Democrats this fall, but some recent confidence measures show that consumers are gearing up for more spending.

Federal Reserve watchers are keeping an eye on the unemployment rate for signs that Chairwoman Janet Yellen will raise interest rates. Many economists expect that it could be June of next year before the central bank allows that to happen.

Economists will also be closely watching the labor-force participation rate, which has remained at record lows despite the decreasing unemployment rate.

Elsewhere on the economic data front, economists will look at the Commerce Department’s numbers on personal spending and pending home sales, to be released Monday. 

The Conference Board will unveil the results of its September consumer confidence survey on Tuesday.

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