CHENNAI: The United Kingdom is pleased with both the quantity and quality of Indian companies investing there, Paul Whiteway, Director International, Inward Investment Group, UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), London, told select presspersons at an interaction here on Friday.

UKTI is a Government organisation that supports companies in the U.K. trading and overseas enterprises seeking a place there. Currently 480 Indian companies operate in the U.K., more than 300 of them Information Technology firms.

Last year, India was the eighth largest investor in the U.K. and the second largest investor in terms of projects from Asia. Indian companies invested in 36 projects.

India in second rank

A third of all investments to the U.K. come from the United States. "India is in a sort of second rank... I would say it is of medium importance in terms of actual number of projects. The importance is the quality that we get out of India," said Mr. Whiteway.

Easing immigration

He said UKTI works "very closely" with Indian businessmen to resolve immigration difficulties. A member of the U.K. Diplomatic Service, Mr. Whiteway said an overwhelming majority of applications for visas and work permits did not encounter problems. "We can process business visas in three days. I think a majority of them are managed easily."

He said that U.K. compared "pretty well" with most major economies in Europe. "We have a lower rate of corporation tax, we have low personal taxes... If you aggregate all the taxes together, you will find that we are at the lower end of the spectrum." Mr. Whiteway said when a company looked to locate operations in a country, it did so for a variety of reasons. Tax was only one of the drivers.

"The other question that needs to be borne in mind is the cost to business. We could give you statistics which would suggest you that cost of doing business overall in the United Kingdom compares very favourably, for example, with the Netherlands or Germany. It's cheaper than France."

Blasts no damper

Referring to the recent blasts that rocked London, Mr. Whiteway said the Government had looked into their impact on investors. "In one or two cases there were companies that put a temporary ban on travel for members of their staff. I am not talking about Indian companies. But there was a swift recovery of confidence... There is no sign of any loss of confidence."

Asked if any Indian firm had evinced interest in collaborating on stem cell research, he said the area had a lot of scope. Potential partners included South Korea and Australia. Mr. Whiteway was here to attend CONNECT 2005, the biggest IT event of the Tamil Nadu Government.

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