UPDATE: US Treasury Secretary To Visit India In Early 2010

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will visit India in early 2010 to launch a new U.S.-India Economic and Financial Partnership, the White House announced Tuesday.

"India is an emerging global power and a country with which the U.S. has an increasingly important economic and financial relationship," Geithner said.

The announcement was made in conjunction with a White House visit by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife, Gursharan Kaur, on Tuesday.

The effort, to be launched by Geithner and Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, is aimed at strengthening cooperation between the countries on macroeconomic, financial-sector, development, infrastructure and other issues. Cabinet level meetings are expected to be held once a year, with the location alternating between the U.S. and India.

Geithner is scheduled to meet Tuesday with a group of Indian businesses leaders that includes Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group; O.P. Bhatt, chairman of the State Bank of India (500112.BY); S. Gopalakrishnan, chief executive and managing director of Infosys Technologies (INFY, 500209.BY); Preetha Reddy, managing director of Apollo Hospitals (508869.BY); Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and CEO of Bharti Airtel (532454.BY); Analjit Singh, chairman of Max India Ltd. (500271.BY); Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairman and managing director of Biocon (532523.BY) and Chanda Kochhar, managing director and CEO of ICICI Bank (IBN, 532174.BY).

-By Meena Thiruvengadam, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6629; [e-mail]