London: To give new impetus to the burgeoning Indo-British trade, India is opening a business centre in London by the end of this month, Indian High Commissioner to the UK Ronen Sen announced on June 4 night.

Stating that there was tremendous scope for stepping up bilateral trade, the High Commissioner said, "We are setting up a business centre and it will be operational by the end of this month." The Indo- Britain bilateral trade crossed five billion Pounds in 2003 and is expected to double in the next four years.

Sen was chief guest at the inaugural dinner of the Conservative Parliamentary Friends of India, which was attended by Baroness Shreela Flather, leading non-resident Indian (NRI) businessmen, S P Hinduja and G P Hinduja, chairman and president respectively of the Hinduja group, Crispin Blunt, MP and several leading British and NRI industrialists.

Reeling out facts about the rapid growth achieved by India in various fields, Sen said despite the global economic downtrend, India had registered an annual growth rate of 5.8 per cent in 2002 and emerged as the world's fastest growing democracy.

"People are fairly optimistic that this year the growth rate will be six per cent or more and exports will go up by more than 20 per cent."

Referring to British Telecom workers' threat to go on strike in protest against more British companies opening call centres in India, Sen said Indian IT companies were opening call centres in Britain and one of them had opened a call centre in Belfast providing jobs to 800 people.

PTI