GREENWICH — A critical part of launching the congressional campaign of Greenwich resident Harry Arora is raising his profile in the district, and on Saturday he began working to do just that.

Arora held an event at his Greenwich Avenue campaign headquarters specifically to meet with members of the Asian-American community. The Republican National Committee event, which the campaign said was put together quickly, attracted a crowd of 70 people who heard from Arora as he talked about the issues and pitched his candidacy.

“It was a great event,” Arora said Monday. “The objective was to energize the community to get everyone involved. This is a very specific segment with the Asian-American community, and I think we got a really good turnout and a very good outcome.”

Arora came to the U.S. 25 years ago as a graduate student from India. He co-founded and runs Northlander Advisors, an investment firm with a focus on European energy that is headquartered in Greenwich. This is his first campaign for political office.

Saturday’s event was more of a “meet and greet” than a fundraiser, he said, with a goal of introducing himself, getting more residents involved in the political process and laying the groundwork for more campaigning.

“This is a community which typically stays apolitical,” Arora said. “It isn’t that involved in the democratic process. A large part of the community is very open-minded and leans toward free market, competitive market economies. They’re also more oriented toward fiscal conservative ideas like balance your budget and spend money wisely, while still being socially liberal, and that’s a natural fit for a campaign like ours.”

Arora said he hoped the community would be energized and become involved by seeing another Asian American running for office. Greenwich resident Dita Bhargava, who is in an Aug. 14 primary battle for the Democratic nomination for state treasurer, is another Asian-American candidate this year.

Arora has secured the Republican nomination and is looking to November, when he will face off against fellow town resident, U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4. Himes, who also has experience working in financial services, is running for his sixth term.

At the event, the state’s economy was very much on the crowd’s mind, he said. While it will largely fall to the governor and state legislature to boost Connecticut’s economic performance, Arora said Congress could also help by pushing for “pro-growth, business friendly policies.”

“In the last administration, there was excessive regulation on the financial sector and even an anti-business sentiment that existed then,” he said. “You could see every bank being sued non-stop. … It was an aggressive idea of saying, ‘Let’s not just fix things,’ but saying ‘You make a lot of money so we’re going to take a bite out of it.’ That’s how it felt. Most banks were not lending much. They were scared, and you can see bank lending and credit lending grow in the last year-and-a-half.”

When asked for comment, Himes also said he was focused on regulations but offered caution about returning to the kind of environment that led to the 2008 financial crisis.

“We need smart regulations and protections,” Himes said Tuesday. “That doesn’t mean rolling back to a pre-Dodd-Frank environment, which puts us at greater risk for another crisis. But it does mean being willing to look at the regulations we have right now to ensure they aren’t unnecessarily hindering business and growth.”

Voters who attended Arora’s event also pushed for improvements in infrastructure and transit.

“I would advocate in a very active way for modernizing and significant investment in the New Haven Line and Metro-North,” Arora said. “I’m not talking about incremental stuff. I think this is the largest commuter railroad in the country and it is in an area that is very critical and an economic hub. We should invest in it with federal dollars to make this a state-of-the-art line within the constraints of what exists.”

Himes said the federal government should “lead the way” on investments in transportation and infrastructure.

“A robust, modern and fully funded infrastructure package is one of my absolute top priorities,” he said. “In Connecticut, and across the nation, our roads, bridges and rail are in a state of disrepair that costs our economy billions of dollars and takes money out of the pockets of our families in the form of higher commute times, higher fuel expenses, and more wear-and-tear on vehicles.”

The Republican National Committee, which focuses on GOP candidates from the national level, ran the Greenwich event and was pleased with its outcome.

“Connecticut is in need of fresh, new leadership in both Hartford and Washington,” RNC spokesman Nicole Tardif said. “Businessman and Republican nominee Harry Arora is an inspiring embodiment of the American Dream with a conservative vision for how to make his district better. Saturday’s　Republican Leadership Initiative training with Harry shows how energized the grassroots is for Republican candidates up and down the ticket.”

Also in attendance were state Reps. Michael Bocchino, R-150, and Fred Camillo, R-151, both of whom will be on the November ballot with Arora as they run for re-election.

“It was a good event, but it was a start,” Arora said. “There is a long road ahead. You have to realize that as a person running for elected office for the first time, I really need to reach out to many, many people. And something like this is important but has to be done on a larger scale, many, many times over.”