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This Article is From Nov 14, 2013

David Cameron meets Manmohan Singh with focus on trade

David Cameron meets Manmohan Singh with focus on trade
British Prime Minister David Cameron, left, chats with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during their meeting in New Delhi
New Delhi: UK Premier David Cameron, who was on his third visit to Delhi, today met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during which the main focus was on trade ties with the British leader maintaining there has been "extraordinary progress" on trade and investment since his first trip to India.

The two leaders, who met during the short visit of Mr Cameron who arrived in Delhi last night on his way to Colombo to attend Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo, also shared strong view on Sri Lanka as the UK Prime Minister said he respected Dr Singh's decision not to attend the meet.

Later, in a tweet after his meeting with Dr Singh, Mr Cameron said they agreed that extraordinary progress on trade and investment has been made since 2010.

According to official sources, the two leaders "reviewed the progress in bilateral, economic and commercial ties. Both leaders expressed satisfaction that despite the continuing global economic slowdown and the Eurozone difficulties, India-UK trade ties have been resilient."

Noting that investments on both sides have also progressed satisfactorily, the leaders "felt that there was a need to take this process further through increased interaction in various fields and regular steps and measures to continue this positive momentum," sources said.

During the meeting, which came just ahead of Mr Cameron's departure for Kolkata, the two leaders also discussed the Bangalore-Mumbai Economic Corridor (BMEC) and were happy at the progress that has been made.

"The terms of Reference for the Feasibility Study of the BMEC have been finalized as also the Request For Proposals.

The importance of India-EU Broad Based Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) was also discussed," sources said.

The two leaders also discussed key regional and international issues as well as the situation in the region, including the developments in Afghanistan.

Earlier addressing Indian businessmen at an event, he favoured more meetings and informal discussions with the Indian Prime Minister and said there is a lot in common between India and Britain and the two were good trade partners as well.

"We are one of the oldest democracies... We both have challenges to fight terrorism and we both want to be successes in this global economic race that we are engaged in. We have ties of the past: the history, the language and the culture. But it is the future that excites me, on what Britain and India can do together," he said.

On Sri Lanka, he said India, Canada and Britain had the same approach of seeing more effort at reconciliation and in probes into allegations of crimes.

"We want to see greater efforts of reconciliation, we want to see better efforts on human rights. We want to see proper inquiries into what happened at the end of that dreadful civil war. It's not a difference in policy," he said.

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