Indian Minister for Industry and The Duke of York stress the importance of trade and investment flows

Issued by the Government of India, Press Information Bureau

The Duke of York called on Dr. Ashwani Kumar, the Minister of State for Industry, in Delhi today. During their bilateral meeting, useful exchanges took place on enhancing Indian-UK flows of trade and investment. The visit, which follows that of the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, in January 2008, assumes special significance in respect of trade relations between the two nations.

Both sides recalled the warmth in the historical relationship between India and the United Kingdom and expressed satisfaction at the current level of mutual engagement, particularly by large UK multinational companies (MNCs) in India, and of Indian MNCs in UK. They called for an increase in business contacts between small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in the service sector, in view of the limitless business potential that exists between the two countries. Dr. Kumar mentioned the significance of major UK investments in India such as Vodafone, Virgin, Huges, Marconi & E-com in the telecommunication sector; British Petroleum, Shell, Castrol, Cairns, British Gas in the oil and gas sector; as well as Scottish and Newcastle, HSBC, Powergen, Aviva, Cadbury, GSK Pharmaceuticals, Johnson Matthey, Logica, Marks & Spencer, Standard Chartered Bank, Tesco, and Unilever, among others. Similarly, he mentioned the recent trend of Indian companies investing in the UK, which includes HCL, ICICI, Infosys, TCS, Thermax, Wipro and Wockhardt.

During the meeting, The Duke of York informed Dr. Kumar that British companies recognize that India would be at the centre of the Asian economic growth story. Keeping in view the overall outward investment profile of the UK, The Duke of York stated that there is tremendous scope for exponential growth, not only in trade but also in investment. He outlined the comparative strength of the UK in the legal and accountancy, R&D, financial, education, retail, innovation, infrastructure and green technology sectors.

Dr. Kumar reiterated India's commitment to the rule-based multilateral and equitable international trade regime for enlarging global business opportunities. The UK is the third largest investor in India with a cumulative FDI of US$4.13 billion. The UK is also one of the major contributors of technology to India with 860 technical collaborations in the last 17 years.