Britain meets India on two-way investment flows

A new ‘Britain Meets India’ report has identified the vibrancy of trade and investment patterns and also flagged key growth areas for UK companies in India as the countries move towards an Enhanced Trade Partnership.

The new ‘Britain Meets India’ report is the sister tracker of an annual ‘India Meets Britain’ tracker of Indian companies operating in the UK, collated by Grant Thornton and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Britain’s footprint in India has been analysed in such a detailed way for the first time and identified 572 UK companies in India, with a combined turnover of around Rs 3,390 billion, tax payment of around Rs 173 billion and employing 416,121 people directly in 2019-20.

It has also highlighted some of Britain’s fastest growing companies in India, led by Dyson Technologies and Aviva Life Insurance Company, both of which registered a growth of over 100 per cent. The highest revenue earner has been identified as metals and mining major Vedanta Ltd and the top employer is London-headquartered security services company G4S Plc.

Key ally

Pallavi Joshi Bakhru, Partner and India-UK Corridor Leader at Grant Thornton Bharat LLP, said: “This reflects the important contribution made by the UK companies to the Indian economy as a key ally in India’s growth story.”

The report, launched virtually this month by Indian High Commissioner to the UK Gaitri Issar Kumar, UK High Commissioner to India Alex Ellis and Sandeep Chakravorty from the Ministry of External Affairs among others, also found that the annual foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow from the UK to India increased from $898 million in 2015-16 to $1,422 million in 2019-20.

Anuj Chande, head of the South Asia Group at Grant Thornton UK LLP, said: “We now have a quantitative measurement of the economic contribution of UK companies to India. Together with our India meets Britain tracker report which is in its seventh year, we have a comprehensive picture of the bilateral investment footprint.”

Industrial and Business Services are found to be the top sectors being eyed by the UK companies in India, with Maharashtra the leading investment destination followed by Haryana, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Karnataka.

Besides Dyson and Aviva, the list of fastest growing UK companies in India includes Diageo Business Services, RMD Kwikform and FMC Technologies. The list of the top 20 UK companies by revenue includes Vedanta, Vodafone, Hindustan Unilever and United Spirits India.

Baseline figures

Sanjiv Bajaj, CII Vice President and Chairman & MD of Bajaj Finserv Ltd, said: “With the UK exiting European Union and signing the trade agreement, it is inevitable for India and the UK to cement their bilateral economic partnership further.

“The UK and India are among the largest investors in each other’s economies. The UK stands as the sixth largest inward investor in India, ranking third among the G20 countries, and accounting for nearly 6 per cent of all inward investment into India for the period April 2000-March 2020.

“Even though we have these indicative figures suggesting roughly the landscape of investment, it was absolutely necessary to analyse and present a baseline for British Investments in India.”

Criteria for analysis

For the purposes of the new report, the researchers identified companies incorporated in India that are owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, from the UK. Additional benchmarks were an annual turnover of more than Rs 500 million, y-o-y revenue growth of at least 10 per cent and a minimum two-year track record of filing with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in India.

CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said: “The year 2021, is a year for economic recovery and a year that we very much hope will bring the much-awaited Enhanced Trade Partnership Agreement between India and the UK to fruition.

“2021 is an important year for the CII as it completes its 40th year of operations in the UK. CII representative office in the UK is the oldest international office in the CII network. We were often asked about the UK investments in India and it was therefore important that we brought these figures to you, to now present a holistic picture of bilateral investments.

“We hope that these baseline figures encourage the industry in the UK to increase their investment footprint in India, across various states and union territories.”