On Thursday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer conducted a high-level bilateral meeting in Mumbai in order to enhance trade and investment relations between India and the United Kingdom. The conference was held at Raj Bhavan, the official residence of the Governor of Maharashtra, where both leaders exchanged greetings and posed for photographs, and then started the discussions geared towards further strengthening of economic cooperation.
Both leaders are supposed to deliver a joint statement after their meeting and give keynote speeches at the Global Fintech Fest, which is one of the largest international conferences on facilitating innovation in digital finance and technology. In their talks, they mainly focus on the speed at which they can implement the India-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that was signed earlier this year and the expansion of their opportunities in partnership in the most vital spheres such as technology, renewable energy, and financial services.
The visit to India is the first time a British Prime Minister has visited since Theresa May visited the country nine years ago, following the Brexit referendum in the UK. In a high-profile entourage of 125 business and cultural icons of Britain, Starmer seeks to cement the UK’s long-term investment in India as an important economic partner in the context of changing the global trade environment and the emerging threats of US tariffs.
The UK Prime Minister’s Office stated that the announced deals in this visit would create almost 7,000 new jobs, and 64 Indian firms would invest up to 1.7 billion dollars in the United Kingdom. In the meantime, leading British companies are to declare the large investments in India, among them Graphcore, the chip design corporation of the United Kingdom under the ownership of SoftBank Group, which is going to invest 1.3 billion dollars to create a new research and development center in India.
Besides that, the Minister of Commerce in India, Piyush Goyal, also held a meeting with the UK Business Secretary, Peter Kyle, on Wednesday, and they reiterated the need to ensure an FTA is operationalized very quickly.
Click Here for Chhattisgarh News
Click Here for Entertainment News