Report sees more city-to-city partnerships

Over the next decade, the nature of UK-India investment will change to a more diverse geographical spread and new innovation-led sectors, according to a London-based industry report.

In recent years UK cities, for example Manchester, Sheffield, and Leicester have sought to build economic partnerships with Indian cities that have a sectoral and ecosystem alignment.

This is proving successful, with increased investments, trade, joint ventures, and academic collaborations being forged, said the report “The UK And India: Bilateral Investment Relationship”.

More such city-to-city partnerships will drive bilateral investment into UK cities outside of London and the South East of England.

This is already delivering results with the development of an automotive engineering cluster near Warwick which includes Tata Motors, TVS, Mahindra, and Eicher Motors, the owners of Royal Enfield motorcycles.

As strategic shifts and “competitive federalism” develops, we expect to see increased UK investment in India’s eastern states and in tier 2 and other emerging cities.

“These will include states like Assam, West Bengal, and Telangana, and cities like Coimbatore, Indore, Ahmedabad, and Hyderabad,” said the report.

It has listed out the “Hot Sectors”, pointing out that India is rapidly becoming “data-rich” while rapidly developing a digital first economy.

The UK Government is putting in place its own Digital Strategy, said the report by the UK-India Business Council.

As technology is being harnessed to develop best-in-class digital infrastructure and services for all businesses and citizens in both countries, it is clear that there are major opportunities for UK and Indian technology companies to invest in the digital revolution in India and in the UK.

Industry Revolution 4.0 (4-IR) will impact virtually all sectors of the Indian and UK economies.

Growth of usage of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)/Blockchain, Big Data, Cloud Computing, and 3D Printing open new opportunities for collaborations and investment in both countries.

Manufacturing

India’s goal is to provide best-in-class manufacturing infrastructure to the world with a combination of traditional manufacturing and emerging AI and IoT technology.

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is also building India’s first smart factory in Bengaluru with a seed funding from the Boeing Company to propel this initiative.

The UK, with its global leading manufacturing R&D capabilities can play a major role in India and India’s world-leading digital technology businesses can play a major role in the UK.

Indeed, the partnership struck in 2017 between Rolls Royce and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in order to exploit future data innovation opportunities in IoT is one such bilateral collaboration that exemplifies this future direction.

The partnerships formed by Indian businesses PCT and Bharat Forge with the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre in the Sheffield City Region is another and the growth of TVS SCS, part of the TVS Group, into a leading European logistics player headquartered out of the UK is the third.

Electric Vehicles

India’s policy to have all electric vehicles by 2030 creates both a challenge and an opportunity.

In February 2017, the NITI Aayog and the Rocky Mountain Institute jointly hosted a two-day event, at which experts explored India’s potential to lead the world in shared, electric, and connected mobility solutions.

Adopting such solutions could mean India saves 64% of anticipated passenger road-based mobility related energy demand and 37% of carbon emissions by 2030 stemming from combined improvements in systems integration, scaled manufacturing, and shared infrastructure development.

4-IR technologies provide a foundation for this shift. Achieving this transformed mobility future will require partnerships, and we can expect to see UK businesses invest in India to make it happen.

Healthcare

The Indian healthcare industry is growing at a rapid pace and is expected to be at GBP197 billion by 2020.

Networked Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, AI, realtime data from wearable devices and improved analytics are driving a profound shift in India’s healthcare sector.

India’s National Health Policy 2017, unveiled the Government of India’s plans to build a national IT backbone that will help in integrating EHRs and making them portable.

There is also an enhanced penetration of health insurance due to technology.

Access of affordable, high-speed data connectivity – both as a result of government’s Digital India initiatives and private sector competition – make it possible for both doctors and patients from smaller towns to access some of the benefits of the changing healthcare sector.

India’s healthcare is creating immense opportunities for new investment and the UK should explore it.

Education

The next technology revolution in education will occur in India because Indian culture prizes learning and scholarship.

This pro-education cultural orientation will translate into education platforms and apps proving products and services that people (at every income level) will pay for.

India’s young population (one in every 3 people below the age of 14) will drive huge demand for postsecondary education opportunities. A campus-based model for 21st century higher education will never suffice to meet the demand.

India is set to leapfrog campus-based higher education and jump to online learning, catalysed by mobile phone adoption.

India has over 850 million mobile phone subscribers; with a rate of increase over 10 million a month these mobile devices will be the classrooms of tomorrow.

The changes that 4-IR technologies like big data and analytics will provide a playground for investment opportunities in the education sector.

FinTech

Emerging technology and the supportive policies of the Indian
government are boosting the growth of a FinTech ecosystem.

London is the global financial capital and the UK is the number one FinTech hub in the world, a report by EY revealed, with the UK FinTech sector generating an estimated GBP6.6 billion in revenue annually.

The growth of DLT and the increased usage of Blockchain technology are expected to revolutionise and democratise the trade finance and payments systems. This translates to multiple collaborative opportunities.

Others

Initiatives such as MeghRaj, the official Government of India cloud, the use of AI in national security, and big data for Aadhaar, the unique identification programme, show India’s rapid reach into the future.

DLT and Blockchain are foundational technologies and as such their influences are expected to extend uses across sectors – in logistics, in manufacturing, in healthcare, in education, in social welfare, in infrastructure and in pharmaceuticals.

Indeed, it is not hyperbole to say that with new uses for secure distributive networks and consequent metaapplications, Blockchain could be ubiquitous for growing economies in the 21st century. fii-news.com