- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
UK’s minister of investment Lord Dominic Johnson on Wednesday (26) embarked on a visit to India to strengthen the two nations’ bilateral investment partnership across technology and life sciences sectors and build momentum behind ongoing trade talks.
After arriving in Bengaluru, India’s information technology capital, Johnson was set to visit the western city of Pune to meet investors and leading Indian businesses, including Infosys and Zensar, to drum up investors’ interest in the UK, the department for business and trade (DBT) said.
The minister’s visit coincides with the ninth round of negotiations this week between officials working on the UK-India free trade agreement (FTA).
“India remains a priority market for the UK and the minister’s visit will help build momentum for the ongoing trade agreement negotiations between the two countries, which saw Round 9 of negotiations kicked off this week,” a press release from the DBT said.
It also said that Johnson will use his visit to India to promote the Global Investment Summit 2023, which will see a gathering of more than 200 chief executive officers of multinational companies and investment companies in the UK later this year.
The inaugural summit in 2021 secured nearly £10 billion of new foreign investment on the day, with this year’s event showcasing emerging UK success stories in life sciences, deep tech, nuclear fusion and small modular reactors (SMRs), and manufacturing, the DBT release said.
“It is fantastic to be in India again visiting the vibrant cities of Pune and Bengaluru to find out how our strong cultural and economic ties mean investors and business leaders continue to choose the UK,” Johnson said, adding, “From life sciences to AI, now is the time to invest in the UK as we are determined to be the undisputed number one investment destination in Europe.”
Last October, the minister visited Mumbai and New Delhi when he met with investors and businesses, including Apollo Hospitals, Prodapt and Wockhardt.
The DBT said the UK-India investment partnership is thriving, with over £28 billion invested in each other’s economies supporting over half a million jobs.
According to official UK government statistics, total trade in goods and services (exports plus imports) between the UK and India was £34 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q3 2022, an increase of 51.7 per cent or £11.6 billion from the four quarters to the end of Q3 2021.
India was the UK’s 12th largest trading partner in the four quarters to the end of Q3 2022, accounting for 2.1 per cent of total UK trade.
(With agency inputs)
