‘UK PM Starmer’s visit resulted in £3.6bn investments into India’

Prime Minister Keir Starmer's recent visit was aimed at giving impetus to economic ties with India even before the bilateral free trade agreement comes into force, resulting in fresh British investments of £3.6 billion into India, UK high commissioner Lindy Cameron said on Wednesday.

- Rezaul H Laskar

Defence was another area of focus, with the £350-million deal for lightweight multirole missile (LMM) systems announced during Starmer's trip expected to lead to engagement with the Indian Army for "more complex weapons", Cameron said in an interview.

Here are edited excerpts from the interview:

There were £1.3 billion of Indian investments into the UK and £3.6 billion of UK investments into India - fresh investments since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the UK in July. This is following up on the trade deal and the unusual combination of two prime ministerial visits. PM Starmer came with a big business, sports and cultural delegation - the biggest we've brought to India ever. As PM Starmer said, let's get going now. You don't need to wait for the trade deal to come into force.

British businesses see India as an opportunity, not just to expand in India, but to go global. And actually the Revolut story is a really interesting one. [UK's Revolut has plans to launch its payment platform in India as part of a global expansion]. There were over 10,000 jobs we created in the UK by the end of the visit.

Don't ask me to bet on parliamentary processes, but I don't think we're expecting significant challenges. It's just there's a process that has to be completed.

It's a tricky year, whether it's the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, clearly a more turbulent economic year globally. But there's a sense these are two democracies, both with governments elected last year for a five-year term, and therefore there's a sense of predictability in the relationship.