LONDON, 11 October 2006 — Both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his British counterpart Tony Blair yesterday blasted North Korea and strongly denied any comparison between the communist state and other nuclear weapon states such as India and Britain.
Manmohan and Blair told a joint press conference at 10 Downing Street after holding talks that North Korea had clearly violated its international obligations by carrying out a surprise nuclear test early Monday.
“India is very strong on democratic procedures. North Korea is in the opposite direction,” Blair said in response to a question from a British journalist who sought to link North Korea going nuclear with the 1998 nuclear tests by New Delhi and Islamabad.
“The tragedy of North Korea is not only have they conducted the test but its people are living under repression, in abject poverty and in a situation of mass starvation while it spends billions of dollars on its nuclear program... I regard North Korea as a separate case.”
Manmohan added immediately: “There is no parallel between India’s policy and North Korea.”
The Indian leader, on a three-day visit to Britain, also brought up, in a clear reference to Pakistan, the issue of “clandestine” nuclear proliferation which many feel has helped North Korea acquire nuclear secrets.
The North Korean action, he said, showed the danger of proliferation. “India’s own security has suffered from clandestine proliferation in our neighborhood,” he added.
Meanwhile, Manmohan said in remarks published here yesterday that he was looking for “more vigorous, more dynamic, more aggressive interest in investing in India”.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, the visiting prime minister said India’s need for investments was enormous.
“We are growing at the rate of about eight percent per annum. Our ambition is to ensure that our economy grows at the rate of about 10 percent per annum, and that means that we will need to invest about 32-34 percent of our GDP.
“We are currently investing about 30 percent. So we need to increate the investment rate by about two percent of our GDP,” he said.
Manmohan told the newspaper that in infrastructure alone it was estimated that India needed an investment of about $150 billion in the next seven to eight years.
“Therefore, there is enormous scope for cooperation between the investment communities of United Kingdom and our economy,” he said.
“Today, all sectors of our economy are open for foreign investment and with Britain we have had an historic relationship. English is the common language. We have the same legal system. There is an enormous opportunity which has not been tapped so far.”
Manmohan highlighted some of India’s priorities.
“Our effort is to ensure that India has a world-class infrastructure. That includes ports, airports, roads, transport services; that includes a lot of more investment in the power sector and other related energy systems. These are our highest priorities.
“We also want our financial services system to be liberalized and expanded. All these are areas in which I believe that the United Kingdom has distinct capabilities which can be harnessed to our mutual advantage.”
