Britain is to push for closer links with India’s creative and technology sectors as it hosts its first India-UK Createch Summit in Mumbai this week. The event, which will bring together more than 1,000 personalities from business and government, including a UK delegation, in areas that include creative robotics, gaming and augmented reality and immersive technology, will be launched by Britain’s Minister for Trade and Export Promotion, Baroness Rona Fairhead, who will also visit Bangalore.

Delegates

A healthcare sector delegation, including healthcare providers, hospitals and suppliers, led by NHS Chairman Malcolm Grant, will also participate in the summit, and also travel to New Delhi and Mumbai to look at potential for greater cooperation in disruptive healthcare technology.

Britain believes collaboration in areas such as immersive reality will have scope for cooperation in areas as diverse as healthcare and the oil and gas sector. The minister will also launch a new campaign to boost tourism between the two countries.

The Createch summit is part of a wider drive to step up collaboration and ties between India and the UK ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to London for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in April, which will also be a bilateral trip.

Last year the Indian High Commission launched its Access India programme to help British small- and medium-sized companies access the Indian market and identify partners, while earlier this month, a new partnership was launched to foster ties between India and the city of Manchester, at the heart of Britain’s efforts to revive a northern powerhouse.

Speaking at an event in Parliament ahead of her visit, Fairhead said that it was particularly important for Britain, as it prepared to leave the EU, that it strengthened trading relations with partners outside the EU, including via regional or local area efforts. “I do believe there is a huge role for regions in enhancing international trade.”

“There is so much potential in India and there’s so much more potential that we can gather between our two countries,” she said noting that Britain was India’s 15th largest trading partner. “We can work together to find out how to change that…I hope you will continue to see the UK as a friend as a partner as a place in which the ease of doing business is good – we have an attractive tax regime, strong ties…”

Indian companies had already been key to job creation and innovation in Britain, she said, noting that in the past year they safeguarded more jobs in the UK than any other country.

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