Washington, May 8: This is the new face of non-alignment. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh goes to Moscow. A fortnight ago, he was the choice of Asian countries to resurrect the Bandung spirit at the 50th anniversary of the Asian-African Conference.

At the same time, his economic ministers are barnstorming America, creating an India fever that is propelling heads of enterprises such as Wal-Mart and Disney to head to India as their new destination.

On Wednesday, John Menzer, international president of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., will arrive in India, part of a procession of American top executives who are looking at the UPA government to replicate China’s reforms and growth in this decade.

Menzer’s visit comes close on the heels of a meeting between Disney chief executive Michael Eisner and the Prime Minister amidst speculation that Delhi would be the next destination for a Walt Disney theme park.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, buys goods worth $900 million a year from India, but its comparative figure for sourcing from China is $20 billion annually.

With the UPA government about to take a decision on the political hot potato of allowing foreign direct investment into retailing, Menzer is expected to tell Indian ministers that Wal-Mart’s global network with an annual turnover of $285 billion can provide unprecedented access to world markets for Indian producers in return for a foothold in the goldmine of Indian retail business.

Partly, the unprecedented interest in India in America’s corporate boardrooms is the result of ?IndiaConnect:USA?, an intense, 10-day wooing of America organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) last month.

For a change, in the run up to the Prime Minister's visit here in July, ?IndiaConnect:USA? presented to American CEOs a band of Indian ministers and officials, whom they could relate to.

Finance minister P. Chidambaram batted for India at the presentation in Chicago while Kapil Sibal, the minister for science and technology, made out India’s case in Seattle and San Francisco.

Rakesh Mohan, secretary for economic affairs, was in New York and S.N. Menon, commerce secretary, more than made up for E.V.K.S. Elangovan, his junior minister, a politician in the traditional mould, in Washington.

Kiran Pasricha, CII’s senior director, who organised ?IndiaConnect:USA?, said the programme was an effort to ?reach out to new players? those who have not invested in India, especially small and medium enterprises.

?India has not marketed itself in America the way other countries with a successful economic relationship with the US have done,? Pasricha said. ?This is a new era for India.?

That it was a new era for India was borne out by the appointments, which the CII team, led by its president, Sunil Kant Munjal and director-general N. Srinivasan, got in Washington.

Visiting ministers from India usually get the much-sought-after photo opportunity with President George W. Bush in the White House, but the ?IndiaConnect:USA? team had talks with four members of the Bush cabinet: the secretaries of state, treasury and energy as well as the acting US Trade Representative.

They also met the White House chief economic adviser and co-chairs of the India Caucus in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, will arrive here at the end of this month to take stock of what has been achieved in Indo-US economic relations and to continue preparations for Singh’s visit.

He will also launch the Indo-US energy dialogue during his stay here.

To iron out any political issues that may be standing in the way of the promising economic relationship, foreign secretary Shyam Saran will arrive here in about a week.