High Commissioner of India to the UK, Navtej Sarna met members of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) - India Business Forum (IBF) on March 2, 2016 at India House. The High Commissioner emphasised the importance of India-UK business ties and emphasised ways and means as to how CII and the IBF could support the High Commission activities. Mr Prashant Jhawar, Chair, CII-IBF thanked the High Commission for its support and highlighted the collaboration of CII UK and IBF with the High Commission.
The same evening, the High Commission of India organised an event, “India Budget Analysis – A Briefing for the UK Business Community” at India House in collaboration with the CII. The event was well attended by more than 100 senior level representatives from the UK businesses, UK corporate houses operating in India, UK Government and media.
The High Commissioner briefly introduced the event in the context of PM Modi’s visit in November 2015, and the Finance Minister’s visit in January 2016. The Panellists who analysed the budget were Mr Prashant Jhawar, Chairman, Usha Martin, Mr Philip Bouverat, Director, JCB, Mr John Copley, Senior Vice President, Rolls Royce, Mr Anuj Chande, Partner and Head South Asia Group, Grant Thornton and Mr Deepak Lalwani OBE, Chairman, Lalcap. The Panel was moderated by Mr Ibukun Adebayo, Co-Head Emerging Markets, London Stock Exchange. The panel presented its views on India Budget 2016-17 and analysed its repercussions on India-UK Business relations. The unanimous view was that it was a balanced budget with positives on fiscal discipline, infrastructure and rural development.
Speaking about the UK-India Relation in the light of the Indian budget, the panelists also agreed unanimously that for the last 5 years the trade relationship has been gaining momentum. The business relationships between the two countries have gone stronger, this budget is the continuation of the same, though there are rooms for improvement. For example: greater use of bilateral trade visits, Indian companies being considered as high quality on the supply chain etc, providing better induction to doing business in India, including introduction to the culture; to mention a few.
The ensuing Q&A session covered a range of issues such as tax holiday on start-ups, focus on rural sector, incentivising entrepreneurs and recapitalisation of banks.
