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India Economic Co-operation International programme summary 2023 to 2024

Published 27 March 2025

Overview

The UK-India 2030 Roadmap sets out an ambitious vision of co-operation between the 2 countries led by both private and public sector collaboration. The UK intends to pursue an enhanced bilateral trade and economic relationship with India, while promoting the UK values of an open and fair economy, fostering long-term institutional ties and building a mutual understanding of each other’s economies. This will, in the long run, improve the UK’s market share in India and support our aim to double bilateral trade by 2030.

The India-UK Economic Co-operation Programme, aims to help position the UK as a key bilateral partner for India, working together to boost UK economic growth and address shared challenges which threaten the UK’s and global economic resilience. This will include, where possible, sharing ideas on global platforms like the G20 and the Commonwealth. The themes chosen for the purpose of this programme aim to demonstrate how the UK government and private sector’s support and expertise can help drive India’s economic growth objectives while strengthening the UK’s own economic resilience, in support of deepening bilateral trade and investment, and policy co-operation. These include:

• Economic policy Co-operation: Collaborate on shared economic challenges to help drive mutual UK-India growth, by investing in structured dialogues, exchanges and research
• Infrastructure Co-operation: Technical assistance for efficient infrastructure development in India through the use of UK expertise and enhanced participation of international financial investors (including from the UK) in infrastructure and allied sectors
• Tax and Regulatory Co-operation: Bilateral engagement with national and sub-national institutions to improve end user experience for British companies in India and easing market entry
• Financial Services Co-operation: Creating and deepening Financial Services opportunities for UK firms in India, particularly in fintech and sustainable finance, which can be leveraged from UK expertise
• Sustainable Growth Co-operation: UK led pilot initiatives to demonstrate UK expertise, support innovation and create commercial opportunities in the future, while also improving the UK’s understanding of and access to India, contributing to our long term economic resilience

Below are summaries of the projects being carried out in FY 2023 to 2024:

• Facilitating knowledge exchange between India and UK Tax Authorities, to discuss challenges and share experiences to stay informed and connect with each other. The direct government to government partnership has helped the UK gaining valuable insights into India’s experience of digital transformation. The activities this year supported a larger multi-year programme signed between His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and Indian Tax Authorities in 2022, designed to run until 2025.

• Delivering a two-day Wilton Park event on Digital Tools for tax administration, bringing seven Commonwealth countries, in addition to India and the UK, to foster a collaboration between tax practitioners across the Commonwealth. It is positioned as the first in a series of exchanges aimed at India and the UK convening the Commonwealth to address common challenges in the sphere of Tax Administration. This year, the workshop saw participation from Barbados, Nigeria, Rwanda, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, India and the UK.

• Outreach activities at the sub-national level to better inform HMG strategy, opportunities for the UK and improve visibility of the UK in various parts of India. The programme supported visits to three states in India, to interact with state-level policymakers, economists and think-tanks.

• ·         Brought a high-level financial services delegation including HSBC, Aviva, Interpolitan, Standard Chartered and Credit Enable led by Minister of State for South Asia, Lord Ahmad to Vibrant Gujarat Summit in India. This was followed by a visit to GIFT City (India’s flagship offshore centre) with their regulator, International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA).

• Supported the Fin-Tech Festival of India - a culmination of a series of roadshows including Bangalore and Mumbai. The Delhi flagship event saw 300 speakers and exhibitors provide a platform for regulators, policymakers and industry leaders. HMG and UK Fintechs secured key speaking slots plus technical sessions on cross border payments, MSME focussed products, financial inclusion and AI adoption in Fin-Tech.

• The FCDO Resilient Infrastructure and Climate Adaptation Team conducted a two-day workshop with key Indian infrastructure departments to demonstrate lessons from implementation of the Building Information Modelling (BIM) mandate in UK. The workshop brought in experts from the Connected Places Catapult, UK to share the enabling framework, technical support and guidance that was provided to government departments in UK as a process of rolling out the BIM mandate. The UK experts also shared the overview of the BIM standards adopted in the UK.

• The FCDO Resilient Infrastructure and Climate Adaptation Team used programme funding to develop an online training module for implementation of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in Indian government departments. The training module is targeted at senior officials in government departments and provides guidance on the process of digital transformation of the conventional way of infrastructure development. This module is being hosted at the National Urban Learning Platform, which was developed with UK support.

• 2023-24 was the second year of a Digital Water campaign supported which provided a platform for eight UK companies to visit India and showcase their technologies across Mumbai and Hyderabad.

• Four pilot projects being finalised this year for three UK companies in areas such as leakage management, water quality monitoring and waterbody restoration, with several future opportunities to explore collaborations between UK and Indian stakeholders.

• Phase 2 of the Net Zero Accelerator Programme building on last year’s study on ‘50 UK Net Zero Companies interested in Indian Market’.  This was designed to introduce UK Net Zero solutions to the Indian market. The programme was virtually launched on by HMTC South Asia, Harjinder Kang, and Mr Gurmit Singh Arora, Chairman, Indian Green Building Council (IGBC). An exclusive, public web portal (www.ukindianetzero.com)  is now available.

• Subsequently, two virtual workshops were organised to introduce the UK companies India. In addition to the workshops, an exclusive UK Country session was organised by IGBC during its annual flagship conference on Green & Net Zero Buildings and Built environment at Chennai in November 2023.

• Combined UK’s scientific excellence, standards, and systems, with India’s National Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NIAB). NIAB is an autonomous institute of excellence, and working with them has helped the UK institutes build strengths in bioinformatics, data analysis, use of genomic data. This has paved the way for a deeper partnership that has unlocked Government of India funding for NIAB, and has also created a mechanism to work together to protect our economies from future pandemics.

• Supported the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) to hold the Raisina Dialogue 2024, India’s premier conference on geo-politics and geo-economics. This flagship foreign policy dialogue in India brings together leaders in politics, business, media and civil society to explore opportunities for cooperation in addressing the most challenging issues facing the global community. Programme support allowed UK to secure participation and visibility amongst India’s key influencers, with attendance from the Minister of State for South Asia, the First Sea Lord, the High Commissioner, FCDO Deputy Chief Economist and  the FCDO Policy Unit.

• A UK-India Emerging Tech Exchange Programme to foster collaboration and drive advancements in cutting-edge technologies. The primary goal of this partnership is to use both nations’ capabilities in the disciplines of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Semiconductors. The programme will facilitate UK and Indian start-up cohorts with knowledge exchange, market access, investment readiness, and tech landscape, establish relationships with key entities in both countries and highlight the strengths and advancements of both nations’ industries. This will allow UK and Indian start-ups to showcase their innovation in emerging technologies and explore potential trade and investment opportunities in the country. In particular, this programme allows UK to work with high potential, established start-ups from India on future technologies.

Programme budget for FY 2023-24

The non-ODA budget for the economic co-operation programme is £1.25 MN.