By Dipankar De Sarkar, IANS
London : Former British prime minister Tony Blair is to join Wall Street bank JP Morgan as a consultant, giving India one more friend on the top table of global business.
Blair, who made partnership with India a cornerstone of his foreign economic policy as prime minister from May 1997 to June 2007, said he also expected to accept “a small handful” of similar roles with international firms in the coming months.
“I have always been interested in commerce and the impact of globalisation,” he told the Financial Times newspaper in comments published Thursday.
“Nowadays, the intersection between politics and the economy in different parts of the world, including the emerging markets, is very strong,” said Blair, who will advise the bank on global political and strategic issues.
JP Morgan’s chief executive Jamie Dimon said Blair would be “enormously valuable” to his bank. “There are only a handful of people in the world who have the knowledge and relationships that he has.”
“We operate our business all over the world, and Tony Blair will bring our leaders and clients a unique and invaluable global perspective that is especially critical in turbulent times like these.”
JP Morgan has assets of over $1.5 trillion and operates in over 50 countries.
The firm, which managed assets worth about Rs.26 billion (approx $662 million) at the end of December 2007, came up with a very positive assessment of India Wednesday, saying current financial problems and interest rate cuts in the US will drive more investors to the Indian stock market.
In his nine years in office, one of Tony Blair’s major foreign and economic policy accomplishments was to build a strong partnership with India, which saw both countries benefit enormously – increased British investments helped spur New Delhi’s economic growth and brought more jobs to Britain.
During a visit to New Delhi, he coined the slogan, ‘A new century, A new partnership.’
Blair, according to the pro-Conservative Daily Telegraph newspaper, is said to be earning one million pounds a month from speaking engagements and the word in the City was that his new job could supplement his income by half a million pounds a year.
Britain’s independent business appointments advisory committee, which oversees the jobs taken by former ministers, is understood to have approved Blair’s new part-time post.
He will also continue to carry out his unpaid work as a UN Middle East envoy but has plans to launch an interfaith foundation later this year.