Consulate General of India, Birmingham & University of Leeds organized a ‘Make in India’, business seminar at the Maurice Keyworth Building of University of Leeds on 10th of November, 2017.This is a part of the week-long series which was organized by the Consulate General of India, Birmingham in 7 prestigious institutions of Midlands and North England between 06th to 10th November, 2017. Prominent members of the business community, civic leaders, members of Chambers of Commerce, members of City Council, Academics, Alumni, Students and senior managers / representative of companies from an array of sectors attended the event.

 Consul General, Dr. Aman Puri, welcomed the gathering and mentioned that there are 800 Indian companies operating in the UK, employing 110,000 people, with combined revenues of 47.5 billion pounds. He also added that the single largest employer in the UK, in the manufacturing sector, is Tata’s India’s largest conglomerate. He mentioned that the British Businesses especially the SME’S must study the opportunity in India, and explore the first-hand developments happening there to develop their India business plan.

 Ms. Shruti Chandra, Manager from Invest India (which is the official investment promotion and facilitation agent of Government of India, mandated to facilitate investments into India), who came specially for this programme from India gave a highly informative and interesting presentation called ‘Transformation India’. Amongst other things she highlighted the bright prospects for potential investors in the future years, in India. She mentioned the various initiatives taken by the Government of India specially in the past 3 years like the Digital India, Skill India etc. On the subject of digital India, she mentioned the interesting fact that India is now the 2nd largest Nation ‘on internet,’ at the same time it is the largest Nation which is still ‘not’ on the internet, thereby implying the untapped potential in this sector.

She also mentioned about the Prime Minister’s ‘Public Wealth Scheme’ ‘Jan Dhan Yojna’ under which no frills basic bank account has been provided to a large section of the population. Talking on the subject of taxes, where a trader in India had to pay multiple taxes on goods moving from one state of the country to another, and had to go through several state border check posts thereby causing tremendous delays. With the introduction of GST recently, all these check posts have now been removed ensuring free and speedy movement across the country.

 In his address Professor Peter Buckley, Professor of International Business and Founder Director of Centre for International Business at the University of Leeds(CIBUL), about the importance of engaging with the world around us and how important our cultural ties are specially the Indian diaspora.

Mr Bharat Joshi, British Deputy High Commissioner, Chennai in his address spoke about how British companies in India are extremely successful in India and are looking to expand and access the India opportunity.

Ms. Rita Hunt, Consultant, Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), UK shared her experience of working with CII UK and noted that the Indian Business environment and the government’s attitude towards SME's have undergone massive transformation which makes it the right time for the UK SME's to come forward and seek help which is available at CII, free of cost.

The presentation segment of the programme was followed by a Question & Answer session, and panel discussion where participants from the audience raised relevant issues which were clarified by the panelists comprising of Mr. Vivek Abraham, Mr Bharat Joshi, Ms Rita Hunt and Dr. Aman Puri. The event was attended by nearly 60 participants. During post event informal session, the participants suggested that more of such events may be planned in future for facilitating British businesses in undertaking the opportunities available in India.