Policy paper

Joint Statement: 13th India -UK Economic and Financial Dialogue (HTML)

Published 9 April 2025

Joint Statement by Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer, United Kingdom and Smt Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, India at the 13th India-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue in London on April 9, 2025  

1) We, the Finance Ministers of the United Kingdom and India, met today in London, United Kingdom, for the 13th Economic and Financial Dialogue (13th EFD). We celebrate the continued strength and potential of the economic partnership between India and the UK, building towards a comprehensive and strategic partnership.

2) We have a shared ambition to ensure economic stability, increase investment, and reform our economies to drive growth and prosperity across both our countries. We celebrate our strong economic partnership, with bilateral trade valued at over £40bn and significant foreign direct investment stocks in both directions.

Enhancing economic growth

3) Both sides look forward to furthering the bilateral relations between our nations, including continuing negotiations at pace towards a mutually beneficial Free Trade Agreement and Bilateral Investment Treaty. These will build on the strengths of our complementary economies, support our mutual ambitions for growth, and unlock opportunities for businesses and consumers alike.

4) The UK side was pleased to update on its forthcoming Industrial Strategy, where partnership can support the Industrial Strategy’s priority growth-driving sectors, such as advanced manufacturing and life sciences, where UK expertise and research capability can complement India’s emerging role as a global manufacturing hub, as well as in clean energy, professional and business services, financial services, the creative industries, and defence to support jobs and economic growth. Both sides look forward to the signing of the India-UK Defence Industrial Roadmap to strengthen ties between industrial sectors and support supply chains.

5) Financial services represent a key opportunity in our economic partnership. Both sides recognise the efforts in one another’s countries towards developing their financial sector strategies and agree to work together on synergies. Both sides welcome the increase in UK-India financial services trade over recent years and commit to work together to grow this further. The Financial Markets Dialogue (FMD) held in GIFT City IFSC, India, in December 2024, provided an opportunity to deepen our cooperation across banking, insurance, pensions, capital markets, and sustainable finance, and our teams will meet for the next FMD in London later this year.

6) 1. Both sides welcome the continued progress of the India-UK Financial Partnership (IUKFP) under the leadership of Bill Winters and Uday Kotak. Both sides recognise the initiative’s success in deepening financial sector ties between our markets. Both sides welcome and note the recommendations of the report ‘Catalysing bilateral growth: Connecting India and the UK’s equity capital markets’ by the IUKFP on enhancing capital markets connectivity between India and the UK, including through listings of securities between Indian and UK stock exchanges.  Both sides also welcomed the new areas of focus identified by the IUKFP for future work: Innovation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Financial Services, Green Finance, and Asset Management and Investment.

7) Both sides acknowledge the opportunities that overseas equity listings offer to broaden access to global investors and enhance liquidity. Both sides welcome the recent regulations allowing direct listing in India’s GIFT City, which will pave the way to allow Indian companies to list in international jurisdictions and noted the feasibility being explored by India for this at the London Stock Exchange.

8) Both sides note the role that UK bond markets can play in supporting capital-raising for Indian corporates, including through rupee-denominated Masala Bonds, and agree to work together to boost opportunities and create supportive policy framework for expanding this further.

9) The UK welcomes the recent announcements in the 2024 and 2025 Union Budgets in India on the move towards rationalisation in the taxation of foreign corporate entities and enhancing FDI limits in insurance sector to 100%.

10) Both sides look forward to exploring the opportunity for collaboration in pensions and insurance funds, recognising that greater international investment can lower the cost of capital, support domestic pensions and insurance needs, and drive shared economic growth. The UK welcomes the approval granted to insurance companies in GIFT IFSC to invest overseas and the proposal under consideration to enable pension companies in GIFT IFSC to invest overseas. Both sides look to further opportunities for greater international investment. Both sides welcome the recent knowledge exchange between the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and India’s Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), which identified opportunities to scale up pension coverage drawing on experience in the UK and agreed to continue the collaboration under the Pensions and Insurance Workplan.

11) Both sides note the potential for greater internationalisation of the Indian rupee, welcome India permitting the opening of rupee accounts in overseas jurisdictions, and agree to explore the role that London as a global financial centre and hub for foreign exchange can play in supporting the internationalisation of India’s currency.

12) Both sides welcome the agreement to formalise cooperation between the FCA and IFSCA through an Exchange of Letters. This sets out a clear framework for future regulatory cooperation including the exchange of information on regulatory developments and best practice, including the exchange of information on regulatory developments, best practice and collaboration on topics of mutual interest, which could include Sustainable Finance, FinTech, Asset Management, Capital Markets, and Payments.

13) Both sides recognise mutual interest in deepening the asset management relationship between our markets, recognising the significant role this sector plays in our financial ecosystems and the benefits of future collaboration in helping accelerate India’s development of the sector. We agreed that the UK asset management sector can complement the UK-India Infrastructure Financing Bridge and support increasing opportunities for Indian investors to access global funds. Both sides agree to work together on a supportive policy framework and to use the next Financial Markets Dialogue to discuss this further.

14) Separately, both sides also agree to explore the feasibility of cooperation on KYC processes to bring greater efficiency in compliances and enhance cross-border financial activities while upholding international standards.

15) Both sides agree to convene the next meeting of the Fintech Joint Working Group later this year to discuss the way forward on key recommendations in the IUKFP paper on Fintech and Data, including CBDC and Open Banking. Building on the UK-India Payments Roundtable held in October 2024, we agree to explore options for enhancing cross-border payments between the UK and India, in line with G20 Cross Border Payments Roadmap. Both sides agreed to continue the breadth of mutual learning and collaboration on fintech and innovation between our regulators. Both sides appreciate the continued cooperation between the FCA and RBI to share information about innovations in financial services and to explore joint innovation projects.

16) Skills and education are central to growth in our economies. Both sides highlight the opportunity presented by the growing higher education partnership between the UK and India. Both sides welcome recent announcements of UK universities establishing campuses in India, including the University of Southampton in New Delhi, as well as Queen’s University Belfast in GIFT City. We welcome the announcement today that Coventry University also received approval to open a campus in GIFT City. Both sides look forward to the opportunities presented by further international branch campuses and transnational education programmes, as well as innovative collaboration models to support our respective educational, skilling, and research objectives.

Securing economic resilience and multilateralism

17) Both sides agree that a strong and robust UK-India relationship enhances the resilience of both economies, including through trade, macroeconomic cooperation, supply chain resilience and collaboration on global challenges, both bilaterally and multilaterally. We will continue to work together to address global challenges and support the rules-based international system.

18) Both sides celebrate our excellent collaboration as co-chairs of the G20’s Framework Working Group and will continue to work closely together to promote discussion and build consensus around responses to risks to the global macroeconomic outlook. Both sides will continue to pursue opportunities to advance and broaden shared objectives to foster strong, sustainable, balanced, and inclusive growth across the G20 and wider multilateral fora.

19) We agree on the importance of continued engagement at the Financial Stability Board (FSB) to bolster global financial stability, address systemic risks, and to ensure a resilient, inclusive, and stable international financial system including through implementation of agreed international reforms and standards. We support the ongoing work on enhancing cross-border payments, addressing climate-related financial risks and on enhancing the resilience of non-bank financial intermediation (NBFI) from a systemic perspective, including the work programme to address non-bank data availability, use, and quality, and the work addressing risks from NBFI leverage.

20) Both sides welcome the successful conclusion of the first year of the India-UK Economic Cooperation Programme. Both sides celebrate its key achievements, including strengthening policy frameworks for driving public and private finance, supporting ambitious infrastructure delivery, supporting regulatory collaboration on climate finance, and supporting the growth of women-led businesses in India. Both sides welcome recent workshops held between Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and Indian state and central authorities focused on public private partnerships in infrastructure and on green hydrogen technologies.

21) Both sides celebrate the successful launch of the UK-India Government Economic Exchange Programme, which has supported economists from both countries in developing understanding of shared economic policy priorities. Both sides agree to take forward this initiative in 2025.

22) Both sides recognise the importance of addressing debt vulnerabilities in low and middle-income countries. To that end, the UK and India agree to continue working together to deliver debt restructurings in a predictable, timely, orderly, and coordinated manner through the G20 Common Framework and beyond, and to swiftly implement the lessons learned from the first Common Framework country cases. Both sides recognise the importance of debt transparency and strive to meet best practice set out in the G20 Operational Guidelines for Sustainable Financing. The UK was pleased to share with India its approach of implementing Climate Resilient Debt Clauses (CRDCs) in sovereign lending.

23) Both sides reiterate the importance of making Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) better, bigger, and more effective to meet international sustainable development goals, building on the legacy of India’s G20 Presidency. Both sides are determined to maintain momentum on MDB reform, including through the implementation of the 2024 G20 MDB Roadmap, in line with each MDB’s mandate and governance structure.

24) Both sides note that scaling up private capital mobilisation is crucial in delivering shared development objectives. Both sides note respective efforts to increase private investment domestically, as well as specific priorities for scaling private investment in EMDEs, which are being promoted through the G20, and how MDBs can support this through increased cooperation and de-risking.

25) Both sides commit to strengthening cooperation in the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Both sides support a strong, quota-based, and adequately resourced IMF at the centre of the global financial safety net. Both sides call on all parties to implement the IMF’s 16th General Review of Quotas as soon as possible. Both sides acknowledge the urgency and importance of realignment in quota shares to better reflect members’ relative positions in the world economy while protecting the quota shares of the poorest members. Both sides welcome the IMF Executive Board’s ongoing work to develop by June 2025 possible approaches as a guide for further quota realignment, including through a new quota formula, under the 17th General Review of Quotas.

26) Both sides recognise the importance of international tax cooperation, such as on the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework Two-Pillar Solution, to build sustainable tax bases and to work together towards a fairer, more inclusive, stable, and efficient international tax system fit for the 21st century. Both sides are proud of their ongoing peer-to-peer knowledge exchange programme between His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). The bilateral exchanges since 2022, alongside the second Wilton Park Dialogue for Commonwealth Tax Administrations held in February 2025, demonstrate our commitment to deliver together for the global good. Both sides agree to continue their bilateral engagement by extending the MoU between CBDT and HMRC beyond 2025, building from the joint projects being undertaken by the two authorities. Both sides agree to jointly build capacity and provide thought leadership for Commonwealth countries, particularly in the Global South, to effectively implement new international tax and transparency standards and realise the benefits of rapid technological change for tax administration.

27) Both sides acknowledge the critical need to tackle illicit financial flows and the importance of using their leadership roles in FATF to protect the global financial system and deliver wider economic objectives on growth, financial stability, and economic security. Building on this, both sides commit to hold a one-off UK-India Strategic Leadership Exchange on Illicit Finance, bringing together leaders and practitioners in both countries to exchange risk understanding, knowledge, and experiences of addressing illicit finance flows.

Boosting sustainable and climate finance

28) Both sides are committed to delivering national action to contribute to achieving global climate and nature goals. Both sides will deliver against Nationally Determined Contributions, as per Article 4 of the Paris Agreement. This includes adapting and building resilience to the impacts of climate change, including through National Adaptation Plans, and support to achieve the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty.

29) On climate finance, both sides noted the importance of collaborative working through the Baku to Belem Roadmap, an initiative to be taken by the COP29 and COP30 Presidencies to enable mobilisation of USD 1.3 trillion from all sources to finance climate action of developing countries. On nature finance, both sides welcomed the positive conclusion to negotiations at the resumed meeting of CBD COP16 and the launch of the Cali Fund. Both sides reaffirm our commitments to aligning public and private activities, fiscal, and financial flows with the goals and targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

30) Both sides welcome the role of the Green Growth Equity Fund (GGEF) in promoting green investments in India, financing pioneering companies, and generating commercial returns. They acknowledged the achievements and the impact created by the Neev Funds with the State Bank of India (SBI) among others. Following these successes and building on over ten years of UK India Development Capital Investment partnership, India and the UK agreed to boost this partnership, with a shared ambition to match mutual commitments from UK Government and Government of India/its entities for new joint investments in green enterprises, tech start-ups, and climate adaptation via funds set up under the existing FCDO – SBI MoU.

31) Both sides welcome that since the start of 2022 British International Investment (BII) – the UK’s development finance institution – has invested $715m into climate-related projects in India and is on track to meet its ambition announced at the 11th UK-India Economic and Financial Dialogue in 2021 to invest $1 billion in such projects over 2022-2026. Both sides also welcome the recent announcement of ONGC NTPC Green’s purchase of Ayana Renewable Power – a leading Indian clean energy business founded by BII in 2018. India’s National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) invested in Ayana during its early growth phase and was instrumental in scaling the platform significantly through its majority ownership of the company. Ayana’s growth demonstrates the strong partnership between Indian and UK public-backed investors including GGEF and BII.

32) Both sides welcomed the launch of a new private sector workstream on green finance, under the auspices of the IUKFP, recognising the critical role of sustainable finance in supporting the transition to net zero. Both sides look forward to the workstream’s first meeting later this year to identify practical ways to harness the expertise and market opportunities in both markets and drive forward this agenda.

33) The UK and India recognise the importance of transition finance for mobilising capital to support sustainable development. Both sides welcome each other’s work on this issue, including the UK government-commissioned Transition Finance Market Review. Both sides note that transition finance is especially relevant for heavy industries, which will need to undertake greater efforts to achieve carbon emissions reduction over a longer period of time. Both sides agree to continue collaboration and knowledge sharing.

34) Both sides remain committed to ongoing cooperation on the development of sustainable finance. Both governments were pleased to hold in-depth discussions on sustainable finance at the Financial Markets Dialogue in December and welcome engagement between the regulators from both sides on approaches to climate risk analysis and sustainability disclosures. Both sides also welcome the RBI and IFSCA’s participation in the Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN)’s first-ever Greenwashing TechSprint to combat greenwashing risks in financial services alongside 12 other international regulators in September 2023.

35) Both sides welcome the progress of the UK-India Infrastructure Financing Bridge (UKIIFB), a partnership between the City of London Corporation and the National Institute for the Transformation of India (NITI Aayog). Following its announcement at the 12th EFD and broad consultation with public and private stakeholders, the UKIIFB Co-Chairs are developing a Year 1 report, which is near finalisation. The report will outline policy recommendations on structuring and phasing major infrastructure projects to unlock infrastructure investment. Both sides welcome the planned Year Two focus on renewables that will build on work already undertaken to assess the Highways and Rapid Transport sectors. Both sides agreed to review recommendations for potential future workstreams on infrastructure finance.

36) Both sides noted the role of India’s Priority Sector Lending (PSL) guidelines in driving finance to critical sectors for sustainable growth, the enhanced coverage of the revised guidelines (effective from April 01, 2025), including renewable energy, and look forward to further cooperation on how international banks can best support priority sectors in India.

37) Given the global nature of financial systems, both sides note the importance of interoperability between jurisdictions of national approaches to sustainability disclosure reporting, albeit recognising country circumstances and considerations. In that light, both sides welcome the establishment of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) and the development of its international sustainability standards, while keeping in mind the national requirements, the broad global adoption of which will be important for maximising the consistency and comparability of information for investors.

38) Both sides welcome the conclusion of the Climate Finance Leadership Initiative (CFLI) India partnership that highlighted potential avenues to mobilise climate finance to support India’s low-carbon, climate resilient development.

39) We look forward to the next EFD in India in 2026.