Modi stresses importance of post-Brexit Britain to India

The City of London is of "great importance to India" and will remain so after Brexit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has told Theresa May.

The pair met this morning as part of a series of bilateral engagements for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London this week.

May told Modi that the UK was "committed to global free trade and investment" and that the UK would remain "a leading hub for global finance", a government spokesperson said afterwards. Modi said there would be "no dilution in the importance of the UK to India post-Brexit", the spokesperson added.

Both Prime Ministers welcomed the £1bn of commercial deals agreed today and discussed a new UK-India Tech Partnership agreed today which Downing Street said would "create thousands of jobs and generate significant investment in both our economies".

The partnership will enable both countries to identify and pair businesses, venture capital, universities and others to provide access routes to markets "for British and Indian entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises". The UK will initially invest £1m to pilot the approach and potentially up to a further £13m by 2022.

The pair also discussed the chemical weapons attacks in Salisbury and Syria, with May stressing "Russias recent destabilising behaviour" in both situations.

[contf] [contfnew]

CityAM

[contfnewc] [contfnewc]