GE CEO: India won’t grow at the expense of U.S.

General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt warned an audience of Indian business leaders Friday that India’s strong economic growth wouldn’t come at the expense of the economic health of countries like the U.S.

Immelt made the remarks at the Global Alumni Conference of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), which drew close to 4,000 people to Santa Clara, California. IIT, with seven campuses throughout India, has 100,000 alums worldwide, about 25,000 of whom live and work in the U.S.

Immelt acknowledged that the offshoring of U.S. positions to India has cost the nation jobs and reduced its manufacturing base. But Indian companies need to grow enough to expand globally, creating jobs in the U.S.

“The challenge to India is can the standard of living of India grow by a hundredfold without the standard of living of America going down at the same time?” Immelt said in a keynote address. “India’s ability to figure out the win-win, to figure out a way the whole pie gets bigger, that it’s not just taking from one place to the other, that in the end is going to determine whether this will be the Indian century.”

Immelt cited Japanese companies like Toyota and Canon that succeeded by expanding beyond Japan’s borders to invest in global markets. He encouraged Indian companies to pursue the same strategy.

Of GE’s total work force of 300,000, 13,000 live and work in India, and the company plans to add 4,000 jobs there over the next few years. While India’s economy is growing, Immelt said it still needs significant new investment in infrastructure, including roads, power plants, and other facilities.

GE specializes in infrastructure technology, including nuclear power reactors and gas turbines as well as medical equipment and jet engines.

U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton, a Democratic candidate for president in 2008, cancelled a planned visit to the Global Alumni Conference to give a Friday afternoon address. She received boos from some in the audience when it was announced that she’d speak to them only via a satellite TV link.