British Prime Minister David Cameron today said that he wanted his country's companies to invest in India to develop new cities and districts along a 600 mile corridor between Mumbai and Bangalore. This would generate investment projects worth up to $25 billion.
Mr Cameron is on three-day visit to India with the largest trade delegation taken abroad by a British prime minister. Speaking to an audience of business people and workers at Hindustan Unilever Limited Headquarters in Mumbai, Mr Cameron said he wanted British firms to work with the Indian and British governments to develop nine districts to link Mumbai, India's financial capital, with Bangalore, its tech hub.
He further said that this would unleash India's potential along the 1,000 km from Mumbai to Bangalore, transforming lives and putting British businesses in prime position to secure valuable commercial deals.
David Cameron said British and Indian officials had been working with business representatives from the two countries on the Mumbai-Bangalore project since last year and had produced an initial assessment of its scale and potential.
By 2030, if realised, the project could generate close to half a million jobs, while indirect jobs could bring the total in the region to two million.
Mr Cameron also said Britain planned to change the visa system to allow Indian business people to get a visa in one day.
On tax the British prime minister said the time has come to challenge the distinction between tax evasion, which is illegal, and tax avoidance, which is legal. David Cameron said businesses have no excuse to avoid paying their fair share of tax in Britain after his government cut corporation tax to a competitive 21%. The British prime minister said tax avoiders should face a moral obligation to pay up because of the difficulty in changing the law fast enough to keep up with new schemes.