India-UK relationship will be significantly boosted by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit beginning Wednesday, Vikram Doraiswami, India’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, has said.
PM Modi will embark on an official visit to the United Kingdom tomorrow and hold discussions with his UK counterpart, Keir Starmer. During the visit, he will also call on King Charles III.
The visit gives both leaders the opportunity to review the entire gamut of the bilateral relationship and discuss ways to strengthen it further. They will also discuss issues of regional and global relevance.
India And UK To Expand Cooperation In Multiple Sectors
The India-UK partnership was upgraded to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2021, and since then has seen regular high-level political exchanges, and both sides remain committed to taking this partnership to even higher levels.
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, who briefed the media on PM Modi’s visit to UK and Maldives earlier in the day in New Delhi, said the sectors of business, technology, research, education, innovation, and the knowledge economy have emerged as key pillars of India-UK bilateral cooperation.
“The Technology Security Initiative, for instance, which is coming up to its one-year anniversary, was signed last year and is a major indicator of where we are taking our ties in critical and emerging technologies sphere. The University of Southampton recently opened a campus in Gurugram, just last week actually, and this is the first foreign university to open a campus in India under the New Education Policy,” he said.
Bilateral Trade More Than USD 55 Billion Between The Two Nations
Misri stated that bilateral trade reached USD 55 billion in 2023-24. The UK is also the sixth-largest investor in India, with a cumulative investment of USD 36 billion. India is a significant source of Foreign Direct Investment in the UK, with a cumulative investment of nearly USD 20 billion.
“There are close to a thousand Indian companies in the UK that provide employment to nearly 100,000 people and have a cumulative revenue of over USD 91 billion. In the defence sector, we are seeing regular interactions and exercises amongst all three branches of the armed forces. We have placed military instructors at each other’s military academies, and one of the more significant partnership projects that we have embarked on in recent times is the agreement to look at electric propulsion capability between the two countries,” the Foreign Secretary said.
(Inputs From ANI)
