UK-India trade. It Starts Here.

As you will have seen in my post last week, the team and I recently spent some time in #india along with a number of UK premium spirits brands for our India Market Discovery Week. Many UK businesses haven’t previously thought of India as a go-to place to export, however I saw a sneak peak of our latest Trade Barometer results before flying out and it’s now sixth in the top markets that businesses are looking at when growing internationally. India continues to thrive as an economy – in 2007, India’s GDP was less than a third of the UKs, however in 2022 India overtook the UK to become the world’s fifth-largest economy… and expectations are that it will become the third-largest consumer market by 2030.

There are many factors at play in the growth of the Indian economy, namely:

• The interplay between a large, young, and aspirational workforce, digital penetration, and fast-growing urban centres is creating strong consumption clusters never before seen in the country. Further, this is not just in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore, India’s Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities like Chandigarh, Jaipur, and Kochi are now becoming significant hotspots of growth and consumption – India has now over 50 cities with a population of 1 million.
• India is also seeing a manufacturing renaissance with ‘Make in India’ at the centre of India’s economic policy. ‘Make in India’ are a series of policy reforms introduced by the national government in 2015 aimed at helping India become a top global manufacturing destination.
• All of this is coming at a time when there are favourable geopolitical tailwinds – global companies looking at diversifying their supply chain out of China to other countries.

What does this mean for UK businesses? From how we see it, there are three broad opportunities:

1. UK products into India. As we saw from our recent trade mission to India, UK products thrive in India, with local distributors keen to get their hands on the premium products on offer. Key products that serve the ever-expanding Indian needs range from whisky to surgical robotics to speed cameras – the opportunities for businesses are diverse. At our India Market Discovery Week, the brands that accompanied us had the opportunity to showcase their products and meet with like-minded companies and partners from across the industry – learning more about the local market and making exciting new connections! It was great to see how much interest there is in the Indian market for both #gin and #whisky, as well as other premium spirits, with many of our clients already selling well there. We also visited Mumbai and Delhi, helping the brands meet with the #trade, leading influencers, and ten leading Indian #importers.
2. In 2021, India exported more software than Saudi Arabia exported oil… with exports at $150 billion and a work force of over five million, India is the world’s largest software service provider. It has a hugely diverse and talented pool of software professionals and is attracting international software service companies by the drove. International companies looking into India as a market also can’t ignore the engineering talent and the R&D and innovation infrastructure that India offers. For most companies, this makes India a strategic part of their global operations – not just as a market, but also for global delivery and innovation. India’s tech talent is particularly strong in IT services, engineering design, SaaS-based products, digital media, fintech, big data, and telecoms. Santander has a strong ecosystem of local partners enabling us to create a network of support and opportunities for UK businesses looking to expand into India – this includes specialist providers in HR and recruitment, legal assistance, tax, and flexible workspaces - Xpheno , Sannam S4 Group , JSA and Nishith Desai Associates .
3. Our latest Trade Barometer research shows that 70% of retail and wholesale businesses are dependent on China for their supply chain and 55% of those plan to diversify their supply chains and reduce this dependency… is this the time for them to look to India? India was among the top four options for relocation or diversification in 2019 and 2020 for American companies. Via Santander Navigator we have an ecosystem of providers such as ZETWERK and ASA that can support you with looking to diversify your supply chain and make moves to India.

This is all underpinned by the support of our partner bank ICICI Bank and deep collaboration with Department for Business and Trade , further supporting the UK-India corridor in both directions.

The UK-India trade relationship is up 51% (Q4 2021 to Q3 2022) compared to the previous year but at ￡3 billion worth of two-way trade there is still a huge amount of growth to come….

UK-India trade. It Starts Here.