After Modi's Make in India, UK launches Great Collaborations

Ahmedabad: Drawing on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Make in India' call, the United Kingdom today announced a campaign to forge collaborations with Indian companies.

The programme called 'Great Collaborations' will seek greater cooperation between the companies based in India and the UK on a range of sectors, an offical statement of the British High Commission said today.

"In response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to the world to make in India, the UK is launching a campaign to celebrate and inspire Great Collaborations between the UK and India," it said.

The campaign will over the time showcase and promote areas of collaboration that benefit both counties across a range of sectors such as energy, healthcare, advanced manufacturing, financial service and infrastructure, it said.

"The first showcase of 'Great Collaboration' is the partnership between UK's BP plc (BP Petroleum Company) and India's Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) in developing and producing energy," added the statement.

Following an initial investment by BP of over seven billion dollar in 2011, BP and RIL plan to invest over 1.5 billion dollar in deep-water exploration and production by 2016 with approximately 50 per cent spent to date, it said.

Subject to regulatory decisions, RIL and BP are keen to progress additional investments of around 10 billion dollar to produce three to four trillion cubic feet of gas from new fields in their K6 D6 deep-water block, the statement said.

The UK Embassy has also quoted British and Indian Prime Ministers appreciating the financial ties between the countries.

"I am proud of the depth and breadth of the UK's links with India. British companies such as Standard Chartered, GSK, Hindustan Unilever, BP and Vodafone have been making in India for decades. And companies such as Tata, Mahindra and CIPLA are operating in the UK and India for decades, benefiting both of our countries," British Prime Minister David Cameron was quoted as saying in the statement.

"Through this campaign we want to inspire and showcase more such great collaborations across all the sectors we work together on. It underlines our support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Make in India' campaign and celebrate India and Britain making great things together," Cameron added.