The head of General Electric, the world’s biggest industrial conglomerate, says a slowdown in the US economy is unlikely to be a problem for the company because of the strength of emerging economies such as China and India.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Jeffrey Immelt said that in spite of the troubles sparked by the credit squeeze, “outside the US, particularly in China and India, economies appear strong”. “In the world as a whole, there is still a lot of liquidity,” he added, saying there was every prospect of GE’s sales outside the US expanding in the next few years by 10-15 per cent annually.