Vinayak Barot
Ahmedabad: The UK-based businessmen have joined the lobby ‘Develop Trade Relations with India’ as South Asian country ‘India’ emerged as a rising economy in the last few months. In a view of better business and economy of the country, the UK-based businessman Richard Pattle LVO said, “Britain needs India as a market, as well as strategically and geopolitically,”
On the free trade deal between India and the UK, Richard Pattle LVO – who is Co-founder and CEO, True Beacon company said, “We can expect the India-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA) talks to be expedited under Liz Truss’ leadership, by Diwali or latest the end of this year,”
“India is also eyeing opportunities to collaborate further in science, technology, healthcare and on the expansion of education access. As a British national – who is living and working in India, I have a keen interest in Indo-UK relations,” Pattle added.
The reduction and removal of tariffs and trade barriers will, of course, benefit both countries. Since 1995, the country’s nominal GDP has jumped more than 700%. As recently as 2010, India was in ninth place, trailing countries such as Brazil and Italy.
The 2030 Roadmap that PM Modi and PM Johnson agreed on in May 2021 includes the agreement of investment deals valued at almost £1 Billion, comprising commercial deals to the tune of £533 million investment from India into the UK.
On the strategic investments and return, pattle said, “Our first international investor faced a hard choice of where to invest globally. In May last year, they could’ve chosen from around ten global equity markets such as the US, the UK, Germany, Japan, or China. Fourteen months later, India is the only major equity market in that list to have returned a profit – even considering the depreciation of the rupee – while the other markets have lost between 5 and 35 percent in dollar terms,”
The war in Ukraine continues to be damaging for the western economies, but India is relatively protected, given the economic and strategic links with Russia.