David Cameron has personally led a massive British trade mission to India. The delegation, consisting of over a hundred UK business representatives and key Government Ministers, is the largest ever British delegation to any country in the world.
This is the second delegation Mr Cameron has taken to India in the two and a half years he has been Prime Minister, demonstrating the importance attached to future British-India relations.
The three day visit saw the Prime Minister visit Mumbai and Delhi and he held meetings with President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and President of the Congress National Party Sonia Gandhi.
A number of trade deals were announced during the trip, including investment from Indian companies such as Tata Consultancy Services in Liverpool, which will lead to the creation of 300 jobs. British companies also announced deals to invest in India, with Mott MacDonald appointed as design engineer for the £2bn Hyderbad Metro Project.
As well as trade talks, the Prime Minister discussed issues around student and business visas, tackling global terrorism and other areas of mutual concern and interest in foreign affairs. He also visited the Golden Temple, laid a wreath at the site of the 1919 Amritsar massacre, met with young people and Bollywood star Aamir Khan and played cricket at Mumbai Maidan.
And in his speech to business leaders in Mumbai, Mr Cameron reiterated that whilst a trading relationship between the two countries was important, he saw it as much more than that. He wants to build a special partnership, built on the future, not the past, between the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest democracy. The Prime Minister said: “when we look at the links between our countries, over a million and a half British Indians living and contributing extraordinarily to our country, I think it strengthens the idea that this is not just another relationship but a special relationship.”
Conservative Friends of India wholeheartedly agrees.