£1 billion deals done as UK PM Boris Johnson comes calling

AHMEDABAD/NEW DELHI:  UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had business on mind when he began his two-day trip to India on Thursday. His first stop at Ahemdabad after a roadshow from the airport to his hotel saw him meeting industrialist Gautam Adani and inaugurating JCB India’s sixth manufacturing plant in Vadodara.

He is expected to announce commercial deals worth £1 billion in new investments and export deals in areas from software engineering to health, creating almost 11,000 jobs in the UK. Both sides will confirm major new science and tech collaborations, including a digital health partnership and a joint investment fund for Indian deep-tech and AI start-ups.

Hoping to deepen security and defence ties as well, Johnson said: “India & UK share anxieties about autocracies around the world, we’re both democracies and we want to stick together.” On Russia, Johnson agreed India and Russia have historically a very different a relationship. “We have to reflect on that reality, but clearly, I’ll be talking about it to Narendra Modi.”

During his visit to the Gandhi ashram in Sabarmati, Johnson was amazed to learn about the Salt Satyagraha — the protest launched by the Mahatma against the tax imposed on salt by the British Raj. “Did we impose a tax on salt?” he asked the accompaning British High Commissioner Alex Ellis. When he replied in the affirmative, Johnson said, “Quite astonishing.”

Following the UK-India Enhanced Trade Partnership launched by both prime ministers last year, new measures will now be announced to make it easier to export UK-made medical devices to India, the British High Commission said in a statement. 

KEY DEALS

• British online food delivery company Deliveroo to set up  its largest technology hub outside of the UK in Hyderabad

• British climate tech firm Carbon Masters to implement a waste management project in Bengaluru

• Ashok Leyland group company Switch Mobility to invest £300 in UK and India

• Chennai-based TVS Motor Company to invest £100 million in iconic British brand Norton Motorcycle

• Byjus’s to invest £15 million in the UK

• Microlabs to invest £10 million in the UK

• Bengaluru-based IT solutions provider Mphasis to invest £5 million in UK

• TVS Supply Chain Solutions to invest £4 million to expand UK operations

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