As the coldest season of the year begins to take North America and Europe in its grip, top executives of the world’s biggest corporations are preparing for a long economic winter in the world’s richest countries. They are stocking up in India.

Jeffrey Immelt, the astute CEO of GE, was an early bird. Last month, he was here making a case for “reverse innovation” — the flow of knowledge and products from emerging economies such as India to the developed world. The conglomerate, he made it clear, is not going to be satisfied with small pickings from Asia’s third largest economy.

Close on his heels was Ford’s Alan Mulally. He unveiled the small car ‘Figo’ as well as big Indian ambitions for the automaker.

As advanced economies such as the US reconcile to anaemic growth in the foreseeable future, the importance of being India has never been greater.

According to International Monetary Fund forecasts, US gross domestic product is expected to shrink by 2.7% this year. Growth next year is seen at a sluggish 1.5%. In the euro area, GDP is projectedtocontractby4.2%thisyearbefore returning to marginal growth in 2010.

India’s $1.2-trillion economy, in contrast, is seen growing by at least 6.5% in the fiscal to March 2010 before it shrugs off the drag induced by the global recession.

The prime minister’s Economic Advisory Council last week estimated that india would receive FDI of $37 billion for the year ended March 31, 2010.

So, in November, we’ll see PepsiCo’s Indra Nooyi, Yahoo’s Carol Bartz, Intel’s Paul Otellini, AMD’s Dirk Meyers, Accenture’s William Green and Nissan’s Carlos Ghosn flying into India’s sunny economic climes. This time, the talk won’t be about marginal increases in investments but game-changing decisions. After all, the world’s biggest corporations are stocking up for the future.

Janmejaya Sinha, the Asia Chairman of BCG, thinks the winter sojourn to India of a growing flock of chief executives is indicative of the “rebalancing” in the global economy.

“Currently the American consumer spends about $10 trillion and 40% of the global population (China and India) spends about $2.5 trillion. Over the next 10 years I think this number will change dramatically. Global CEOs are readying for this.”