Visit to India

I was delighted to recently visit Mumbai to meet with key business leaders. I am visiting India at an exciting time for both our countries, as the UK-India trade talks resume this month in New Delhi.

Last year the UK’s trading relationship with India was worth £42bn, and our partnership supports over 600,000 jobs across both countries.

The trip saw many successful meetings discussing areas for UK-India financial services alignment and partnership with Amarjeet Singh from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Rabi Shankar.

There are plenty of areas the UK can share expertise with India and deepen our collaboration, particularly green finance. It was productive to talk through such points with British businesses here in India including Barclays, HSBC, Lloyd's and Howden. I was also particularly pleased to see the Square Mile represented here in Mumbai at the official residence of His Majesty's Trade Commissioner, Harjinder Kang, with a painting of my ward church, St Benet's Paul's Wharf!

It was an honour to visit and have a tour of NSE India as the exchange marks 30 years of operations. I had a productive conversation with NSE CEO, Ashish Chauhan, about the journey of the exchange and future areas of collaboration between Mumbai and London as NSE expands.

I spoke with Radhika Ramaswamy at NDTV about strengthening UK-India financial services ties, outlining how I will use my mayoral theme to encourage British companies to go into dynamic markets such as India as well as encouraging Indian businesses on the unique investment proposition of the UK. I look forward to taking this work forward when I return to London.

I also met with Uday Kotak - chairman of Kotak Securities, a juggernaut in India’s remarkable growth story. We had a wide-ranging conversation on opportunities and barriers in UK-India investment, London’s competitiveness as a global financial centre, and how I can use my mayoralty to strengthen our partnership.

I couldn’t visit Mumbai without meeting the chairman of the Tata Group, Natarajan Chandrasekaran. Tata is central to the UK-India business partnership, so it was productive to discuss with Mr Chandrasekaran where he sees opportunities to optimise our collaboration to drive economic growth in both our countries.

Wrapping up a highly productive series of meetings in Mumbai with key leaders from NSE India, the central bank, regulators, Tata Group, and Kotak Securities. We’ve had valuable discussions on the ongoing UK-India Free Trade Agreement and how it could open up new opportunities, particularly in the services sector. I look forward to working on new initiatives to strengthen UK-India ties through my mayoral theme - Growth Unleashed.