Thaindian News

London, Feb 4 (IANS) The UK-India forum was “fantastically important”, said British Prime Minister David Cameron, who hosted the first meeting of the CEOs grouping at Downing Street and discussed ways to improve trade between the two countries.The UK-India CEO Forum was established during Cameron’s visit to India last year. It has leading British and Indian business executives as members. It is co-chaired by Tata group chairman Ratan Tata.

“This is for me to listen to what the CEOs are saying about what needs to change in Britain to make us more attractive, and what needs to change in India to increase the flows of investment both ways,” Cameron told the meeting Thursday.

He called the forum “fantastically important” and said he believed that the British-Indian relationship could be much stronger.

The three key areas on which the forum held discussions were making the British economy favourable to Indian investment, opening up the Indian economy and encouraging bilateral trade.

“I think this is an extremely modern, dynamic, forward-looking relationship of two countries with very complementary interests,” said the prime minister.

The forum also discussed the Doha world trade deal.

Cameron said he had agreed with US President Barack Obama and other world leaders at the G20 summit in Toronto that the deal should be made bigger to enable “more benefits to more people”.

“That is what I hope we’ll use the time for and (Indian) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and I can discuss and take forward these agendas,” he said.