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Indian business going places, says PM

Prime Mminister Manmohan Singh told the Indian community in the United Kingdom on Monday that India was on the move and that "high rates of growth on a sustained basis" were not all he had in mind. He was talking about the expansion of Indian business, not just in India but abroad.

It is a point Singh has been making right from the time he left early on Monday for the two-nation visit, to raise the level and content of India's business links first with the UK and then the rest of Europe.

"Several Indian companies have expanded their global presence in various sectors across the world, including in the UK," Singh told the community at a reception hosted by the Indian High Commis sion. He called the "transformation" back home one of the "most far-reaching revolutions of this century". Singh had noted just hours earlier that "Indian companies are among the major investors in the UK".

The UK Trade and Investment's (UKTI) report this year ranked India the third largest investor in 2005-06, up from rank eight in terms of the number of projects the previous year. An Ernst and Young report released last week estimated that India had jumped one more rank in the first six months of 2006.

It is not the East India Company working the other way yet Indian companies made up for £1.02 billion of the £219 billion investment in the UK in 2005 but the trend has certainly been reversed. "Indian investment in the UK is significantly higher than the UK's direct investment in India," Confeder ation of Indian Industry (CII) president R. Seshasayee, who led the CII delegation at the UK-India Investment Summit on Tuesday, told the Hindustan Times.

By Unregistered Visitors, Section Business
Posted on Wed Oct 11, 2006 at 05:11:18 AM EST

Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon had last week pointed out that more than 500 Indian companies had offices in the UK. Seshasayee said it was the broad base of Indian companies that was more important than the money per se.

It is not just that India Inc is only looking at the UK. London is also turning out to be the gateway to Europe; 60 per cent of Indian investment in Europe comes via the UK.

Seshasayee sees a major signal in the trend, "that India Inc is turning outward looking, externalisation of India is going in a big way... What makes it better is that the externalisation is broad in scope and approach". According to him, nothing sug gests this better than the fact that "external investment by Indian companies in the first quarter of 2006-07 is higher than the FDI inflow into India. This is the big story".

But Seshasayee lamented that British business had not yet started focusing on infrastructure development in India. It is in this context that Singh is asking British businesses to invest in infrastructure projects in India. Delhi estimates the country's investment requirements to be in the vicinity of $150 billion in seven to eight years.

British companies, explained Seshasayee, are still "waiting and watching" India, not actually moving in. They seem to be waiting for the perfect market to arrive, which is quite unlike their traditional self. "British industry has always rebelled and ventured into new territories, right from Africa to south Asia."

Source- HT, October-11,2006

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