Indo-UK Ties

UK Foreign Secretary Mr. William Hague visited India on 7-9 July 2014. He met EAM on 8 July 2014, during which the two sides discussed progress in bilateral relations across a wide range of sectors as well as regional and global issues of mutual interest. Strengthening people to people contacts, cooperation in social sectors, situation in India’s neighborhood and multilateral issues were amongst the issues that came up during the discussions.

During the visit, UK Foreign Secretary was accompanied by Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr. George Osborne who held the seventh round of India-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue (EFD) with Minister of Finance and Defence on 8 July 2014. Discussions in the EFD focused on macroeconomic issues, infrastructure financing, financial services and regulations and trade and investment relations.

An Accord for ‘Enhancing cooperation in infrastructure and Public-Private-Partnership (PPP)’ was signed by the two Ministers during the EFD. Both countries agreed to pursue joint work on exploring ways to encourage increased institutional investment in infrastructure including a one billion British Pound line of credit from UK Export Finance (UKEF) to support Indian infrastructure projects. In addition, it was decided to establish the India-UK Financial Partnership supported by the Governments and financial services industries to deepen the financial sector links between the two countries.

This Information was given by the Minister of state in the Ministry of External Affairs and Overseas Indian Affairs Gen. (Retd.) Dr. V. K. Singh in Rajya Sabha today.

YSK/ Uma