India must lift trade barriers: UK

Entry-level obstacles came in the way of stepping up British investments in India but efforts of united progressive alliance government to further liberalise foreign direct investment, particularly in telecom, insurance and civil aviation sectors were encouraging, British High Commissioner Michael Arthur said.

"A lot of British investors have said the entry obstacles in India are quite high and the government should look at these areas and think of lifting FDI caps," he said at an interactive session with the Forum of Financial Writers in New Delhi on Tuesday.

He, however, said India was becoming more open in various sectors like civil aviation and telecom and a lot of British investors were now investing in India.

"India has come a long way. Three years ago, it did not figure in the list of league investors in the UK but today it is the eighth largest investor," he said, adding 28 new Indian companies have invested in Britain in 2003-04, taking the total number of such companies to 480.

"Big Indian names like Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro have also joined the group and you would see a friend in us and not a foe," he added.

On why his country was not investing in India as much as in China, he said "It is true that our investment in China is almost ten times higher than that in India, but that is primarily because of their open policy."