British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will be the chief guest at the Republic Day next year. Making this announcement here on Tuesday, visiting British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Johnson has accepted India’s very “generous” invitation to honour the occasion.
Raab held extensive talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on various bilateral and international issues besides firming up Johnson’s upcoming visit. Media including The Pioneer had reported about his likely visit in January next year on December two.
This will be Johnson’s “first major bilateral visit” since he took charge last year, his office highlighted.
“I am absolutely delighted to be visiting India next year at the start of an exciting year for Global Britain, and look forward to delivering the quantum leap in our bilateral relationship that Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi and I have pledged to achieve,” the British Prime Minister said in a statement.
He is only the second British Prime Minister since India’s independence to attend the Republic Day parade in Delhi as guest of honour after John Major in 1993.
Jaishankar said his presence at the annual celebrations “would be in a way symbolic of a new era, and a new phase of India-UK ties.” Boris Johnson has also invited Modi to join the G-7 summit next year in Britain, said Raab. India will be one of the three guest countries.
Johnson “will use his visit to India to boost cooperation in areas that matter to the UK and that will be priorities for our international engagement throughout 2021 - from trade and investment, to defence and security, and health and climate change,” his office said.
“The UK and India are significant investors and markets for each other’s economies and our growing trade and investment relationship is worth around 24 billion pounds a year, supporting more than half a million jobs There are 842 Indian companies in the UK with a combined turnover of 41.2 billion pounds, creating jobs in all four corners of the United Kingdom,” it added.
Calling India “an increasingly indispensable partner for the United Kingdom”, Johnson described the country as “pharmacy of the world” in remarks that assume significance at a time when the fight against coronavirus is raging.
“As the ‘pharmacy of the world’ India supplies more than 50 per cent of the world’s vaccines, with over a billion doses of the UK’s Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine being manufactured at India’s Serum Institute in Pune,” he said.