The UK insurer sector will benefit significantly from the Prime Minister's strengthening of links to India, an independent financial services body has said.
TheCityUK, that promotes Uk financial services, "wholeheartedly" welcomed David Cameron's comments at a press briefing yesterday in Amritsar, in the wake of Standard Life and Prudential both forming joint ventures with Indian insurers.
Gerry Grimstone, a member of the UK's trade delegation to India and Chairman of TheCityUK, said: "We hope it will have a positive impact, opening more trade with India and fostering greater collaboration between our financial and related professional services.
"We therefore wholeheartedly support the Prime Minister's call for India to open up its markets in areas such as insurance and banking to British companies.
"Our banks and insurers have already shown themselves to be in India for the long haul. Standard Life and Prudential are great examples of this, leading private sector joint ventures with Indian insurers."
Cameron said in his briefing speech yesterday that there had been really good progress on economic, trade and commercial ties with India; a lot of interest in healthcare among other sectors.
A healthcare-related question put to the Prime Minister at the briefing asked about the continued employment of former-Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust staff, including Sir David Nicholson who remains chief executive of the entire health services.
Cameron said Nicholson was competent and that after working closely with him, was impressed with the "grip and grasp" Nicholson had over the NHS.
Cameron said: "I obviously read that report very carefully; I looked at what people were responsible for and, it seemed to me that he had properly apologised and acknowledged the mistakes that the regional health authority had made, when he ran it for that short period of time as these events unfolded."
He added that Nicholson should not be made a scapegoat.
