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British PM visit to India focuses on developing economic and trade ties

30 July 2010 04:22 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. British Prime Minister David Cameron Thursday wound up his two-day visit to India after holding talks with his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh, APA reports quoting Xinhua News Agency.
He also attended Thursday an important British-Indian business forum with the top entrepreneurs of both countries here and attended the signing ceremony of a 1.1 billion-U.S. dollar project to jointly make 57 "Hawk" trainers for the Indian military in the southern city of Bangalore Wednesday.
This visit was Cameron’s first to a major developing country since assuming office and the first visit by a British PM to India since 2005. He was accompanied by seven cabinet ministers and 50 British entrepreneurs as well as many people from the circles of education, culture and arts.
Regarded as the largest ever delegation to India since India’s Independence in 1947, the visit also showed the great importance paid by London to India.
On the eve of his visit, Cameron published an article on British-Indian relations in the Indian daily The Hindu, in which he called for "a stronger, wider and deeper relationship" between the two countries, while emphasizing huge potentials in cooperative fields such as economy, trade and security.
As per the agreement struck between New Delhi and London during Cameron’s visit, one can see that economic and trade cooperation remain the focus bilateral relations. But the new characteristics of British-Indian relations can also be summarized as following:
Despite the fact that Britain was the former colonial power in India, its influence in the international arena has fallen greatly since World War II and its political and economic influence in India itself has also greatly diminished over the past several decades.
Before he landed in India Tuesday evening, Cameron said he came here "in a spirit of humility". He said sentiment and "a shared history" can no longer build a new special relationship between the two countries and Britain must win its position in India though fierce international competition.
The prime minister also pointed out that the aim of Britain is to again become one of the top five trading partners of India. Last year, British-Indian trade fell to 4.5 billion U.S. dollars, and Britain became India’s 18th largest trading partner.
The recent change of government in Britain was mainly caused by economic recession resulting from the global economic meltdown. After he came to power, Cameron carried out the largest deficit cut and economic austerity plan since Prime Minister Thatcher.
London has realized that if Britain wants to recover from the economic slowdown, it must seek wider market overseas, especially in Asian countries. The Foreign Office has also launched a campaign of economic diplomacy. Under this circumstances,
Cameron thus chose India as the first developing country to visit. The two governments agreed to carry out a wide-range of cooperation in all fields, increase investment in each other’s country, and set up a CEO joint team to stimulate such endeavors.
BRITAIN WANTS TO SHARE INDIA’S ARMS MARKET
India is well-known for relying on foreign -- in particular Russian -- military equipment and technology to modernize its military forces, due to its limited home armament development capabilities. Over the past several years, India has been stepping up the purchase of foreign armaments.
Britain, with its ownership of military high technology, wishes to share the Indian arms market. The Hawk project is one example of its efforts to do so. Besides this trainer, Britain also cooperates with India in Jaguar military aircraft production and it intends to build ships for India’s Coast Guards.
On the other hand, with restrictions of technology import from the U.S., India wishes to obtain advanced military and nuclear technology from Britain, which is an important member of NATO.
BRITAIN AND INDIA OWN GREAT "SOFTWARE POWER" FOR DEVELOPING TIES
Due to historical reasons, Britain and India have very close relations in people contacts and personnel exchange. India has some 2 million immigrants in Britain. The two countries also enjoy close ties in education, academics, science research, arts, sports and other fields, which make up a huge "software power" for developing bilateral ties.
During Cameron’s visit, the two countries agreed to widen and deepen exchanges and cooperation in these fields. Britain also promise to continue absorbing the most talented people from India.
CAMERON’S CRITICISM OF PAKISTAN DRAWS ATTENTION
During the visit, Cameron twice criticized Pakistan for not doing enough to crack down on terror groups on its soil. This could be regarded as an unusual gesture from London to boost the position of India, which has been blaming Pakistan for the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Political analysts and senior Indian officials immediately welcomed the British PM’s remarks as "unusually blunt", but they also pointed out that the remarks came in the light of furthering defense ties as Britain clearly look at India as a potential buyer for defense equipment which may see the country breathe easy as it is recuperating from recession which hit the country two years back.
Some analysts also speculate that Cameron’s new attitude towards Pakistan could signal a shift of policy of the United States and NATO in Afghanistan, as the Western countries might " encourage" India to be more actively involved in Afghanistan once NATO withdraws from the war-torn country.