The Hindu Business Line : Finance hub: London keen to help Mumbai

Chennai, April 14 The City of London is keen to assist Mumbai in its aspirations to becoming an international financial centre, the Lord Mayor of the City of London, Mr Alderman David Lewis, said on Monday. The Lord Mayor is here on a 11-day tour of India, which began in Chennai on Sunday.

Referring to the (Percy Mistry) report on making Mumbai a global financial hub, the Lord Mayor said that India knew what needed to be done. The City of London (the one square mile that is the oldest part of the metropolis, which is the largest financial centre in the world) has rich experience as a financial hub — something that could be tapped to assist an aspiring city like Mumbai.

The City manages some £3.8 trillion of funds (excluding sovereign wealth funds), accounts for 34 per cent of global foreign exchange turnover each day (compared with New York’s 17 per cent and Tokyo’s 6 per cent), accounts for 90 per cent of world trading in metals and is the world’s leading market for international insurance. It also houses the London Stock Exchange and its subsidiary, Alternative Investment Market (AIM), a stock market for smaller companies.

Eye on infra deals

“The City is the world’s capital for raising capital,” the Lord Mayor told Business Line. He stressed that The City was interested in participating in the public-private-partnership projects in the Indian infrastructure sector. He observed that India had around 1-lakh (star) hotel rooms, about the same as in the cities of Shanghai or Las Vegas.

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