All eyes on Modi′s first UK visit as Indian Prime Minister

All eyes on Modi′s first UK visit as Indian Prime Minister

Narendra Modi's visit to the UK certainly seems likely to provide a spectacle, with the event at Wembley Stadium likely to be the highlight. Whether the visit solidifies some kind of all-weather partnership between the two countries is more of a moot point.In particular, it will be interesting to see how the rhetoric compares with Modi's statements during his recent trip to Germany, where he said that he saw Germany “as a natural partner in achieving our vision of India's economic transformation. German strengths and India's priorities are aligned...“Germany's economic strengths - machine tools et al - clearly resonate in India, a country keen to build up its manufacturing base. The UK's offerings are different, and its pockets lighter, than those of Germany. Whether the visit is successful in government-to-government terms (rather than people-to-people) will depend on how the British government manages, with limited resources, to package its various assets.A welcome shift in recent years has been a move by the UK away from requesting India to open up sectors such as financial and legal services to a more nuanced approach which looks at India's domestic priorities and assesses how the UK and its firms could help fill any gaps. Finance is clearly essential to meet India's infrastructure needs, particularly given the low tax base; around 3% of the population may income tax, and around 400,000 people (out of 1.2bn) are the source of more than 60% of all tax collected. Putting infrastructure first and foremost, rather than financial services, is more palatable. Urbanisation is another key issue for India. According to a 2014 McKinsey study, 70-80% of the India of 2030 was yet to be built. Here, the UK has a range of experience in fields such as urban planning and architecture which could be deployed for mutual benefit.Defence is another of the UK's strengths, though for India, Russia has been the traditional supplier. Between 2010 and 2014, India was the world's largest arms importer, with 70% of its imports Russian, 12% from the US and 7% from Israel. The centrepiece of Modi's visit to France in April this year was the agreement to buy 36 planes from Dassault for US$4bn. If the UK manages to ink any substantive defence deals with India, this would mark a major success for the UK.In the longer-term, the UK-India relationship requires an on-going partnership to develop, show-casing the UK's assets, and helping to meet India's developmental aspirations.

Dr Gareth Price is a Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House, focussing on South Asia. His research spans economics, politics and international relations.

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