The Indian High Commission in London has begun an initiative to encourage small and medium sized British businesses to invest in India, in a renewed focus away from the larger firms that aims to match the success of the relationship between India and Germany which has seen strong partnerships in this area.
The high commission is working to identify 50 companies that have the strength and interest in working in India initially that it can work with, as part of the Access India, which will provide necessary market entry support, and work with organisations such as the U.K. India Business Council.
Market entry support
‘“This programme is designed to provide market entry support services, strategy advisory, legal and financial advisory, product financing, location services and mergers and acquisition advisory as well as support through the process of states and central government approval,” said High Commissioner Y.K. Sinha at the event in London.
He said that the defence, pharmaceutical and food sectors would be particularly ripe for investment under the programme.
‘Negative risk’
“There is a small negative risk but that is mainly in railways, atomic energy and gambling…in other sectors investment is welcome,” Mr. Sinha said.
“The SME sector is the backbone of the U.K. but they don’t have international exposure,” said Deputy High Commissioner Dinesh Patnaik. “Every product in the U.K. has the potential to do well in India because the market is just so big. British SMEs can always have a small part of that huge market. Our idea is that if in one or two years we can have a few in the pipeline it can help others to follow.” He added that the programme was likely to be rolled out to other countries in the near future.
