By Aroonim Bhuyan, IANS
New Delhi : Bilateral trade between India and Britain is on a new high and is set to shoot up in the near future, according to British Indian entrepreneur and UK chairman of Indo-British Partnership (IBP) Karan Bilimoria.
“There has been a great awakening, especially in the last one year, in Britain about opportunities in India for British companies,” Bilimoria told IANS here Monday.
“The Tata-Corus deal and the recent acquisition of Hutch in India by Vodafone are just the beginning,” said Bilimoria, who is also the vice-chairman of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Asian Business Association.
This year, during Jan-Feb, bilateral trade in goods between the two countries grew by seven percent to £968 million. Britain is also the third largest investor in India after Mauritius and the US for the period Aug 1991-Mar 2007.
Between Jan-Mar 2007, the highest number of approvals for FDI from Britain was in the trading sector and the highest value of FDI approvals was in telecommunication at Rs.7,044.16 million.
There is more to come, according to Bilimoria.
“IBP has already got £1 million as UK government funds,” he said, stating that it reflected British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s desire to have increased trade links with India.
He, however, lamented that barriers still remained in India, which prevented further foreign funds from coming in.
“Infrastructure for one. However, I can see the changes every time I come here. But still, the fact remains that 300 million people are still under the poverty line in India. That has to change and for that the barriers must go,” Bilimoria, the 46-year-old founder of Cobra beer, said.
Citing an example, he said that the legal sector in India was still closed to foreign legal practitioners.
“However, what is heartening is that India’s Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj announced recently in London in the presence of eminent members of the judiciary that the legal sector in India would be opened up for foreign players by as early as the end of this year,” he added.
“Just imagine,” he said, “the kind of opportunities that will open up for the legal fraternity in India. From corporate legal advice to legal process outsourcing, the potential is endless.”
Another sector that Bilimoria felt needed to be opened up was insurance.
“As of now, foreign insurance companies are allowed only 26 percent stake in India. With insurance penetration levels in India still a single digit percentage, this has to change,” he opined.
He hoped that the picture would change sooner than later and cited the aviation sector as an example.
“In November 2004, there were only 19 direct flights a week between Britain and India and all of these were from London. Even as IBP lobbied for more flights, Heathrow (airport in London) complained that the Indian aviation ministry was creating barriers while the aviation ministry here blamed Heathrow.
“Somewhere, in between, someone put the switch on, and today you have over 119 flights a week between Britain and India,” he said.
“Indeed, trade between the two countries are set to shoot up sooner than later.”