Cameron on trade mission in India

British PM David Cameron arrived in Mumbai today at the head of the largest trade delegation taken overseas by a prime minister, on a mission to “open doors for British business” in India.

Among the party of more than 100 joining Mr Cameron on his second visit to India as PM were representatives of major companies like Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems and BP, small businesses, universities, football’s Premier League, the London Underground and nine parliamentarians.

Mr Cameron wants to use the three-day visit, during which he will meet prime minister Manmohan Singh and president Pranab Mukherjee, to forge closer links between British business and one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

Expected initiatives to encourage trade include an easing of visa conditions for Indian businessmen visiting the UK.

He will confirm plans for a new pan-India network of British business centres, due to open by 2017 backed by £8m of UK government money, and is expecting deals to be sealed with Indian investors which will create more than 500 new jobs and safeguard 2,000 more in the UK.

But he is also hoping to get to know India better, telling the Hindustan Times he intended to sample some curries – which he likes “pretty hot” – in the home of the spicy dish, and catch some Bollywood movies during his flights.

Mr Cameron kicked off his visit today by addressing workers at Unilever’s Indian headquarters, before meeting major Mumbai investors in the UK.

Investment deals expected to be confirmed in parallel to the visit include an Ashok Leyland research centre in Warwickshire; expansion of Polaris computing services in Belfast; 70 new staff at Hinduja’s TalkTalk in Preston; a new International India Centre at the University of East London; and 300 jobs at a Tata delivery centre in Liverpool.

Meanwhile, plans will be announced for Brit Health Care of Wolverhampton to open a centre in Delhi, Benoy to design a shopping mall in Bangalore, Intercontinental to open 13 new hotels in India and Porvair to design and build filtration systems at the world’s largest oil refining complex in Jamnagar.