Cameron was leading a vast delegation of Cabinet ministers and business leaders, many of them dispatched across India in an unmistakable message that his new government wants India as a major partner.
“I want to take the relationship between India and Britain to the next level. I want to make it stronger, wider and deeper,” he said in a speech at the headquarters of the high-tech company Infosys in the southern Indian city of Bangalore.
While Cameron noted the deep cultural and historical ties shared by the two nations, he made it clear that his main mission was to harness business opportunities offered by the blossoming Indian economy.
With Britain slowly emerging from its worst recession in decades, Cameron said he and his nation were “selling ourselves to the world with more vigor than ever.” “I’m not ashamed to say that’s one of the reasons why I’m here today,” he was expected to say, according to his prepared remarks.
India’s planned $500 billion infrastructure investments, its burgeoning retail market, the nearly 20 million new cell phone users it adds every month all created business opportunities for British business, he said.
“Now I want to see thousands more jobs created in Britain, and of course thousands more in India through trade in the months and years ahead. This is the core purpose of my visit,” he said.
Highlighting the visit’s importance, Cameron brought six government ministers, about 50 powerful British business leaders, Olympic gold medalists and academics along on the trip.
He began his visit in Bangalore, where officials signed an agreement for India to buy 57 Hawk advanced trainer jets from Britain.
The military planes will be manufactured in India by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, under license from BAE Systems. That deal and a linked agreement for Rolls-Royce engines for the planes total nearly $1.1 billion.
Britain is trying to increase its military trade with India, which traditionally buys most of its weaponry from Israel, the United States and Russia.
The deal “is evidence of our new, commercial foreign policy in action,” Cameron said after the agreement was announced.
Also Wednesday, Business Secretary Vince Cable announced that Britain would allow the export of its civil nuclear technology to India, mirroring an earlier agreement the United States made with India. The decision was expected to help British firms compete for business in India’s civilian nuclear industry.
In Mumbai, Treasury chief George Osborne rang the opening bell at the Bombay Stock Exchange and later addressed a hotel ballroom packed with business leaders, seeking deeper trade ties while pledging to support India’s long-standing bid for more influence at global organizations like the International Monetary Fund.
Financial services, he said, were key in growing trade links and he encouraged Indian regulators to allow British banks to open more branches.
“Offer them licenses in the medium-sized towns and smaller cities and they will jump at the opportunity to be part of the huge effort to bring modern banking services to millions more Indians,” Osborne said.
Britain is desperate to make up lost economic ground in India.
Britain was the 5th largest exporter to India in 2005, but has since fallen to 18th. Exports to India dropped from 4.12 billion pounds ($6.4 billion) in 2008 to 2.9 billion ($4.5 billion) in 2009.
But if the trip may have appeared laden with irony, as a former colonial power sought deeper ties with its one-time colony, few here saw it that way. Powerful Indians now take it as a given that their country is a major player in the global economy.
India is “the obvious stopping place for a British prime minister whose economy is in a slack position at the moment, to try and cash in on whatever business opportunities he can get,” said Kamal Mitra Chenoy, a professor of international studies at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.
The British ministers were to converge later Wednesday in New Delhi, where Cameron would hold talks Thursday with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The two leaders were expected to sign a cultural agreement and seal a round of trade deals, and Cameron was expected to ask India to reduce trade barriers. Singh was expected to raise concerns about British efforts to stem Indian immigration and to insist that India maintain a role in nearby Afghanistan, despite the objections of rival Pakistan.
