The bilateral trade between India and the United Kingdom has increased 16.5 per cent in the first six months.
Addressing a press conference, Rob Young, British High Commissioner said, in the past 10 years, bilateral trade has almost doubled to £5 million.
However, Young said, in the near future the proportion of services would go up and the trend would be reversed.
He pointed out, in July 2002 the Confederation of British Industry and the Confederation of Indian Industry had set the target for bilateral trade at £10 million, which was achievable.
At present, the total number of Indian firms in the UK were 450 compared to 150 a few years back. Most of the investment was in the IT and related sector. Young said, this showed the confidence in the British economy and the country's IT sector.
The potential areas for investment in India, he said, were IT, telecom, automotive, healthcare, biotechnology, mining equipment, food processing and agri-business.
Later at the CII meeting on "India and the UK: Reflections on a modern partnership", Young said, India was now the eighth largest investor in the UK in terms of number of projects and linked to this has been the steady growth in movement of Indian professionals to the UK, especially in high skill areas such as IT software, medicine and education.
Replying to queries, Young pointed out that the union government must try and improve the air links to India and increase the number of international flights.
Citing the example of Singapore, he said, Singapore receives three times the number of foreign travellers to India, despite the splendour of the country. Young also said that travelling to India was expensive and the Indian industry must come up with more three-star category hotels.
The common perception was that India only catered to the rich. Hence, more mid-level hotels at par with the international standards should come up.
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