UK to continue bond with Indian research community

Chennai, Aug 4: The United Kingdom will continue to develop wide and long-time partnership with India's research and development community that yields cutting-edge technologies, British Deputy High Commissioner in Southern India Mike Connor said today.

Speaking on the topic 'India and the UK: Opportunities for economic and business partnership', organised by the Centre for Security Analysis (CSA) here, he said over the last 15 years Indo-British technical collaborations accounted for 11 per cent of all Indian collaborations with overseas firms.

''The UK has one of the most creative and productive scientific and research communities in the world,'' he claimed.

Quoting the City of London Advisory Council of India figures, which established three priorities for strengthening the relationship between both the countries, Mr Connor said the development of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode for infrastructure development, improving access to capital and development of the corporate debt/bond market - on which the City of London was undertaking research for publication later this year.

''This is really an opportunity to take partnership between both the countries to the next level and we hope companies in India and the UK make full use of this new office,'' he said, adding that United Kingdom-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI) had committed nearly 25 million pounds over the next five years to strengthening research links.

He said in 2006, UKIERI reached out to a large academic community in both the countries and awarded 26 research fellowhips, 86 travel grants, 24 standard and six major research awards, ten PhD scholoarships, 11 school cluster partnerships, three professional and technical skills development partnerships and six collaborative programmes delivery.

Mr Connor said, investment of various British companies in India had grown from Rs 476 million in 1991 to Rs 78 billion in the last year. ''In the last year alone about eight lakh British nationals visited India. In 2004, there were only 19 direct flights a week between the UK and India and now there are over 100'', he said.

He said the UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), the British Government's organisation that facilitate British companies to do business overseas and overseas companies to invest in the country, recognised the importance of India.

''The number of staf working for UKTI in India is being increased'', he said adding ''our Trade and Investment Minister Sir Digby Jones is keen on improving even more bilateral trade and investment relationship''.

UNI