Kolkata, Aug 24 (IANS) India’s economic success and development are vital to the global economy and to Britain’s interests across South Asia, the British envoy to India said here on Thursday.

“India’s economic success and development are vital to the global economy and to UK interests across South Asia, and to global priorities like sustainable development goals,” British High Commissioner to India Dominic Asquith said during an interaction with students of Heritage School of Technology here.

Asquith underlined the target action areas.

“The target action areas include improvement in the business environment, skill development, employment generation, energy security and developing smarter cities as engines of growth,” said the senior diplomat.

Noting that India was currently the world’s ninth largest economy and predicted to become the third largest by 2050, he observed that its economy was now the fastest growing globally.

“It is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases despite 300 million people lacking access to energy,” said Asquith.

He saw education, skills and entrepreneurship as the backbone of the UK-India future partnership.

“I hope the next gen in both countries will take advantage of the opportunities available to become Living Bridges connecting the people of both nations across political, economic and social platforms,” said the High Commissioner.

Asquith said the UK India Education and Research Initiative in its first two phases has supported over 1000 new education and research partnerships that aim to deliver long term prosperity benefits for both the UK and India.

The programme has also facilitated 25,000 exchanges of academicians, researchers, staff and students, creating lifelong links between the UK and India and over 35 million young people have benefited through train the trainer programmes.

–IANS
ssp-mgr/ahm/dg