UK stresses to bolster trade, business relations with India

The Dollar Business Bureau

The UK will continue to bolster business, trade and tourism ties with India, even during the post-Brexit period, said Bharat Joshi, British Deputy High Commissioner in Chennai.

“The UK is the biggest investor in India. We want to bolster our trade and industrial relations with India,” Joshi told the journalists in Thiruvananthapuram while briefing about various scholarship programmes offered by Britain.

“India is the second largest investor in London and India is on the top of the list for the partnership with UK. Our relation with India is already firm and we will continue to strengthen it,” he said.

On the question whether there would be any problem for Indians working in UK during post Brexit, Joshi said that there is nothing they have to worry about.

The Deputy High Commissioner said that we want to encourage more tourists from our country to visit India.

“Every year, a large number of tourists from Britain come to India and several of them visit Kerala also,” he said. “We want more tourists from Britain to come to the Gods Own country,” he added.

While asked about the Scholarship programmes, he said that the UK provides largest scholarship programmes compared to anywhere in the world. These include Chevening – a flagship programme, which is the UK’s International Award Scheme meant to develop global leaders.

"The Chevening India programme is the world’s largest, which offers up to 65 fully paid scholarships and the same number of fully paid fellowships, each year", Joshi said.

He also mentioned there were only few people applying for scholarship programmes from Kerala but he wants more persons from the state to get benefitted from the schemes offered by the UK.