The British Deputy High Commissioner, in Mumbai, KUMAR IYER, in an interview with RAMNATH N PAI RAIKAR speaks about the positive impact of the recent visit to India by British Prime Minister Theresa May, growing investment between India and UK, the myths about the difficulties in procuring British visa and visa facilities for Goans
Q: British Prime Minister Theresa May visited India last year. How do you think this visit will impact the relations between the two countries in coming times?
It was a really good visit. She in fact brought her delegation with her, but more importantly we had the UK-India tech-side. We had big names, CEOs and leaders from every single walk and field you can imagine, with people who design advance machinery… We had Sir James Dyson, who makes the Dyson vacuum cleaners; we had the CEO of the Framestore, who do all those special effects for Harry Potter films and the rest… In fact, we had wonderful celebration of technology. We had about 1.2 billion pounds of business deals that were announced, and they were in all ranges of fields from healthcare to aerospace. We also had a MoU on urban development. And very importantly, we started our initial trade policy discussions to build a stronger bilateral relationship, when the UK eventually leaves the EU. We had our first meeting on that as well. We also had a very, very good set of discussions around defence partnerships and defence co-ordinations. And we have been following up on that really actively. The reality is that there are almost no two countries that are in many ways, as important for each other as UK and India. So as you can see, the numbers don’t lie, since India is the third largest investor and the second largest job creator in UK. And that doesn’t just come from Tatas; last year we did 140 (investment-related) transactions from India into the UK. And the lovely thing is, it’s a reciprocal story. And the other way round, UK is the single largest G20 investor and foreign employer in India. So when the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) says ‘Make in India’, UK is the biggest maker in India, by that measure. One in twenty jobs in the organised private sector in India is with the UK firm. And we are really proud of this relationship. So it’s hugely strong on both sides, and our Prime Minister’s visit just made it stronger.
Q: One of your main tasks, when you arrived in India was to help more British firms do business in the region and to attract more inward investment into the UK from big Indian firms. How much have you progressed into the field of UK trade and Investment?
Hugely successful! Now companies like Mahindra, Intas are becoming bigger names and brands in the UK. Cipla has established its international headquarters in the UK. We have companies like Airtel… Essar is a huge investor as well… Lots of Indian IT companies also have very sizeable operations in the UK. The Piramal Group is also there. In the last few years since I arrived here, we have just had fantastic growth and boom. And it has not stopped even after the (Brexit) referendum. I think both Mahindra and Intas have made the deals since the referendum. So there is no shortage of flow.
Q: In this context you had launched the UK India Business Centre initiative. Can you share details about it with our readers?
That’s been great. They are great business partners for the UK government here in India. And what they have been able to do is to really help the SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) in India as well as the UK; get in touch and engage with each other. They help us on delegations. They help us when British companies come out and want to meet and engage with Indian firms. They have physical presence and engagement in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. And they are looking at how they can evolve and develop their business model in the future, maintaining the level of service, but may be doing it slightly differently. So they are really good business partners. I think, sometimes it’s important to realise that government is not the answer all the time.
Q: Now that British Prime Minister Theresa May has confirmed that Britain is heading for Brexit Max, how would you look at the immigration problems faced by Indians in Britain, especially as Indians in the UK tend to be young, highly educated and employed as professionals or skilled workers for whom trade and migration in an integrated market is a net-plus?
Prime Minister May on Tuesday was very clear and said a few times in her speech that the UK is open and will always be open for the brightest and the best, from across the world. There was a study that has come out about three days ago, which shows that post-referendum UK is the third most attractive place in the world for high quality talent. We have now overtaken the US, Sweden and a whole number of really amazing countries. We will now focus on that and continue to make ourselves attractive place for the talented people that you described.
As for immigration of Indians, this is one of those areas where fact and fiction often get confused repeatedly. One of the great myths that we have around Indian visas to the UK is that it is difficult to get one. Actually nine out of ten applicants that is ninety per cent of all Indian visa applicants get their visa, and that one in ten form the people, who filled in the form incorrectly, didn’t submit the documents or have forged the applications. So if you know someone who was declined the visa, then they are in really, really significant minority. Another myth is that it takes a long time to get the UK visa. Actually as per the standard visa process, we ask the people to allow 15 working days; typically on an average we do it in 6 days anyway. We have a Priority Visa, which takes three working days on an average. We also have a Super Priority Visa, if you have real urgency, where you can apply in the morning and you can get it in the evening. We also have ‘Beat the Peak’ campaign under which one can get the postdated visa, to beat the rush for visas during peak periods like summer. Yet another myth is that students can’t work in UK. Actually they are allowed to do post-study work. They can work for up to three years, extendable for another three years, which is more generous than most of the countries. All that they have to do is get a graduate level job. What we had previously was a lot of visa abuse, with students going to lot of bogus colleges. We shut all of those colleges down and said that students need to get graduate level job. In fact, the number of Indian student visa applicants going to UK topped this year as also those going to Russell Group of Universities continue to increase.
Q: The British Deputy High Commission will be hosting the first Beryl Nasse Award for young female entrepreneurs in Goa, in memory of Beryl Nasse, a British citizen who moved to Goa and since then had been an active member of the British Community here, till her sad demise in 2015. Can you share the details of this award with us?
We are really proud of these awards. We are very grateful to Narayan Bandekar, the president of the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry, for sponsoring the awards. Peter Pinto, who is the chairman of the British Business Group here, has also supported the process. These awards are exactly what Beryl would have wanted, who always spent her time nurturing talent and supporting business links between India and the UK. The awards are for the young female entrepreneurs in Goa, who have spent at least two years working in the business, spending significant amount of their time in developing it. We had some great applicants and the competition was very strong. We have a winner and a runner-up, the winner being Ninoska Alvares-Delaney, a fashion design entrepreneur, running a sustainable fashion company.
Q: Some years ago, the British government opened its first ever Mobile Biometric Clinic (MBC) in Goa, for saving the time of locals from travelling to distant places like Mumbai to apply for visa. Is there a possibility of opening up a permanent facility like say a British Consulate in Goa, now that many European countries including Portugal have such facilities here?
Obviously the Portuguese Consulate is here due to historical reasons. We have a Consular Office here but it doesn’t process the visas. We are continuing to bring here the Mobile Biometric Clinic, something which we will continue to do, but we don’t have any immediate plans to open a permanent location here. However, we always keep these things under review. We will continue to monitor what the levels are, but we are always looking for the ways to make the (visa) process easier, better. We talk about links and business and security, but at the end of the day, it comes down to people to people relationship. And if we can’t facilitate the exchange of people going backwards and forward then it makes my job very hard. It’s very much in our interest to do whatever we can.
Q: Finally, how do you look at Goa in terms of art and culture exchange with UK, especially as Goa has long tradition of Indian as well as Western classical music, painting and other forms of art?
In fact, the winner (of the Beryl Nasse Award), as we just discussed, says it all. We have really good and strong relationship with Goa on the art and cultural scene. Last year alone we and the British Council did lot of work here. To give an example, we recently brought an exhibition of the famous British artist, Julian Opie here in Sunaparanta. We, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare also bought Filter Theatre, the leading theatre company in the UK, here, with the show of the ‘Twelfth Night’, which was really well received. And we continue to look at engagement here in Goa. We have 1,49,000 British nationals, who visit Goa every single year, that is 10 per cent of the Goan population, which is a great and wonderful thing, and we want to continue to sustain that.