‘India-UK ties will flourish despite EU split’

IT IS too early to say how Brexit will work for the UK, but it will definitely do won­ders for India-UK relations, Dinesh Pat­naik, deputy high commissioner of India to the United Kingdom, said at an event last month, writes Keerthi Mohan.

The envoy’s remarks came at an India- UK Young Professional Network event, where he said Brexit will present UK with a lot more opportunities.

“What Brexit does is wean UK away from its relations with the EU. This means it opens up a lot of opportunities for its relations with others,” Patnaik said.

On how Brexit will impact Indian busi­nesses in the UK, Patnaik said they will face the same challenges as UK firms.

“We are looking to see how we can minimise the impact on them. We are in continuous conversations with the gov­ernment to see what they are coming up with. The government has a fairly good idea what it is wanting to do,” he added.

The event in central London was also attended by Arun Kohli, chief operating officer EMEA at Morgan Stanley Interna­tional, where he charted India’s growth to become one of the leading economies in the world.

India used to be the twelve largest economy in 2007 and now it’s the sev­enth largest economy. Citing Morgan Stanely’s research analysts, Kohli said that the subcontinent’s growth story is bullish; India in the next 10 years is ex­pected to go from being a $2.5 trillion economy to a $6 trillion one. “At that point India would be the third largest economy in the world,” said Kohli.

As to whether India will surpass China to become the strongest economic power in Asia, Kohli believed India’s large popu­lation could be an advantage. For instance, about 25 million people will be entering India’s workforce every year. He feels India has the potential to take advantage of this, especially at a time when China is seeing a decline in its working population.

“Our third largest number of employ­ees in the world is in India. If you count into that the workforce that supports us in the form of vendors, India is actually number two. You cannot say the same for China,” he said.