US President Barack Obama speaks at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel in Mumbai November 6, 2010. Obama paid tribute on Saturday to victims of the November 26, 2008 Mumbai attacks on the first day of his visit to India. [Photo/Agencies]

The president is aware of sometimes being perceived as antibusiness in corporate America, and said after the elections that he wanted to change that perception. Much of Obama's day Saturday appeared geared toward that goal.

Before speaking to business leaders, he met separately with some of them, letting reporters look on as he tied his mission to US job creation and proclaimed the importance of working with fast-growing economies.

The White House also arranged for four American chief executives who are in India for the occasion to brief reporters traveling with the president. They talked up the importance of India as a trading partner and praised Obama's decision to come to the country to underscore that point in person.

Obama was spending three days in India, his longest stretch yet in one country, a point US officials have been careful to emphasize as they play up the administration's interest in nurturing the relationship. On Sunday he heads to New Delhi, the capital, where he will address the parliament.

After India, Obama is scheduled to travel to Indonesia, where he lived for four years as a youth. From there he goes to South Korea for a meeting of the Group of 20 developed and developing nations and then to Japan for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, before returning to Washington on November 14, a day before the start of Congress' lame-duck session.