‘A bond market is essential to encouraging growth’

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: Alderman David Lewis, the 680th Lord Mayor of the City of London, believes in plainspeak. During a 12-day tour of India, Lewis, who represents the entire financial community in London’s Square Mile, did just that in an interview with FE’s Sourav Majumdar about a wide range of issues like why Mumbai is still not a major financial centre yet, the need for a corporate bond market, the quality of regulation in the UK, and much more. Excerpts:

What is the agenda of your trip?

We’re here to talk about a number of things. We’re impressed with the Indian market. Trade between our respective countries is about 9 billion pounds, or $18 billion, distributed fairly half-and-half, and we would like to see it grow. The UK is the second-largest investor in India, a fact that is sometimes overlooked. India is the second-largest investor in the EU and the UK gets about 60% of that. So, we’re very pleased with that. The UK is investing heavily in India; it would like to invest more. India is a fantastic economy with huge growth prospects. There are challenges in investing in India; restrictions which we would like to see raised because it is difficult to invest here.

The reason London is so successful is because 20-25 years ago, we lifted our restrictions and got rid of exchange controls. The financial services sector in Britain is the largest sector which produces 14.5% of our GDP and contributes 26% of corporate tax. We would like to see the same happen, gradually, in Mumbai. We think Mumbai deserves to be a financial centre, which it is not regionally or globally, yet. It’s at number 48, globally, and deserves to be much higher than that.

You’ve done a lot of work with India on corporate debt. What are your comments on that?