India, UK to strengthen economic cooperation in infra and financial services

In order to further boost trade and investment, India and the UK have agreed to strengthen their economic cooperation in infrastructure and financial services. The discussion was carried in a meeting of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley with his UK counterpart George Osborne as part of the 8th India-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue. Further, in the meeting there were discussions on the possibility of the investing from UK, either directly in projects or through the National India Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) that India has created.

Jaitley has said that Britain has been cooperating and also extremely keen that large British companies, particularly involved in infrastructure financing, start investing in Indian infrastructure. Moreover, India is very much interested in having the British investors look at infrastructure investments in the country for which various possibilities were discussed in the meeting. Highlighting the global economic slowdown, Jaitley said that India is still managing a reasonable growth rate and this move is one of the better options that investors have. While comparing to various countries economic growth across the world, he said that India's growth rate despite challenges is probably the highest in the world among major economies.

The meeting was held to build on the success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent summit with his British counterpart David Cameron in the UK. In the meeting there was discussion about advancement of cooperation in a range of sectors including infrastructure financing, addressing issues of cross-border tax evasion and avoidance besides opening up of the Indian legal sector to foreign lawyers.