London [UK], July 22 : India-UK relationship will be significantly boosted by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit beginning Wednesday, with the relationship poised to move to the next level through progress in areas such as trade, technology and defence, Vikram Doraiswami, India's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, has said.
PM Modi will embark on an official visit to the United Kingdom tomorrow and hold discussions with his UK counterpart, Keir Starmer. During the visit, he will also call on His Majesty King Charles III.
The visit gives both leaders the opportunity to review the entire gamut of the bilateral relationship and discuss ways to strengthen it further. They will also discuss issues of regional and global relevance.
"We believe the India-UK relationship will be significantly boosted by the PM's upcoming visit. Even though it is a short visit, we think the opportunity is considerable for the relationship to be moved to the next level. The PM is visiting here after almost four years...The focus is really on looking at where next we can take the relationship, whether it is on trade or technology or defence partnerships and indeed where do we see the next big idea for the India-UK relationship. So, the discussions between the two PMs should generate some consensus around where the two governments want to take the relationship. We think the future-oriented relationship is where the relationship is going to come out," Doraiswami told ANI.
He said the preparations for the visit are all in full swing.
"My colleagues and I have been extremely busy, trying to put everything together. As I said, the visit is being worked at short notice. But there is great enthusiasm not only in my team but my colleagues back in India who are working on the visit and also here among our British partners to make sure that this is a substantive, focused visit," Doraiswami said.
The India-UK partnership was upgraded to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2021, and since then has seen regular high-level political exchanges, and both sides remain committed to taking this partnership to even higher levels.
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, who briefed the media on PM Modi's visit to UK and Maldives earlier in the day in New Delhi, said the sectors of business, technology, research, education, innovation, and the knowledge economy have emerged as key pillars of India-UK bilateral cooperation.
"The Technology Security Initiative, for instance, which is coming up to its one-year anniversary, was signed last year and is a major indicator of where we are taking our ties in critical and emerging technologies sphere. The University of Southampton recently opened a campus in Gurugram, just last week actually, and this is the first foreign university to open a campus in India under the New Education Policy," he said.
Misri stated that bilateral trade reached $55 billion in 2023-24. The UK is also the sixth-largest investor in India, with a cumulative investment of $36 billion. India is a significant source of Foreign Direct Investment in the UK, with a cumulative investment of nearly $20 billion.
"There are close to a thousand Indian companies in the UK that provide employment to nearly 100,000 people and have a cumulative revenue of over $91 billion. In the defence sector, we are seeing regular interactions and exercises amongst all three branches of the armed forces. We have placed military instructors at each other's military academies, and one of the more significant partnership projects that we have embarked on in recent times is the agreement to look at electric propulsion capability between the two countries," the Foreign Secretary said.
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