Indian Ambassador Meera Shankar would like to correct a misperception she believes some U.S. businesses have about her country.

The misperception? That hers is a "predatory" nation, a "technology rival... where you think every Indian somehow is out to get your job."

"We are not" predatory, the ambassador said during a luncheon today of the Public Affairs Council's "International Network." "We are still a developing country. The fact that this is a relationship that benefits both is an important fact to get across."

During an hour-long presentation to about 30 luncheon participants, Shankar pointed out several developments that indicate the relationship between India and the United States is "a two-way street."

She noted that between 2004 and 2007, the economic relationship between the two nations added more than $100 billion in value to the U.S. economy -- in investments, for instance, product sales and employment. She pointed out that services trade between the two nations is roughly balanced, and that while Indian exports to the United States are somewhat greater, U.S. exports to India have been growing at a faster pace. Moreover, she said, several Indian companies have been investing in financially troubled U.S. companies, while some 94,000 Indians now studying in this country have helped push "the relationship in a positive direction."

"I see that this relationship has become mature," she said. "It has also acquired substance. And it is poised for growth."

She noted that her country continues to have challenges, including: a national infrastructure that hasn't kept pace with growth; an educational system that needs resources to include more than the "upper or middle class;" and an economy that cannot rely entirely on IT, but also on the industrial and manufacturing sectors to create other types of jobs and on the agricultural sector to support the 65 percent of workers whose livelihoods still depend on farming.

Asked about India's stance this December in Copenhagen - where nearly 200 nations will convene to forge a deal on a climate treaty to replace the soon-to-expire Kyoto Protocol - Shankar noted that because energy production must increase up to eightfold to meet national demands, "emissions... will be a challenge."

Industrialized and developing nations are at odds over how to spread out curbs on greenhouse gas emissions. India has conveyed that it is taking steps to adapt to climate change and reduce planet-warming emissions, but it will not commit to any binding targets because it needs to burn energy to lift millions from poverty.

To learn more about the International Network, visit www.pac.org/IN.