City of London will have Mumbai officer

London: The City of London, as the financial district is called, has hired Alan Rosling, a leading businessman in India, as chairman of the new India City of London Advisory Board - a forum for greater financial service links with India.

Executive director with Indian industrial major Tatas, Rosling will help the yet-to-be-finalised board steer the work of the City of London Corporation's new office in Mumbai, official sources said.

Chairman of policy and resources for the Square Mile authority, Michael Snyder said, "Our job is to support the UK-based financial services industry and we expect our office in India to become an important channel for two-way contacts and business.”

"India's growth is changing the landscape of the world economy and the new Mumbai office. The advisory board along with Alan Rosling will keep the Square Mile as close as possible to this fast-growing world-class partner,” Snyder added.

Snyder, who visited India earlier this year to lay the ground for the Mumbai office, said that Rosling was the ideal business figure to help the board.

His extensive experience in India would help the City in its current recruitment of the advisory board and through it maximise the benefits of the new office for both India and the UK-based financial services industry.

Snyder said that the Mumbai office was designed to promote the services of the City as a world-class financial centre to Indian public and private sector customers, including the raising of capital, insurance, asset management, infrastructure finance and consultancy, and the exchanges of London.

"I also see a role for the City Office highlighting the City as a centre for business education, training and professional development," he said.

He added that promoting the City as a location for business representation and investment by Indian companies in the European time zone and facilitating further involvement by City firms in the Indian economy by providing support for inward visits to India were also roles to be undertaken by the Mumbai office.

The office, which is expected to open later this year, joins others the City has opened in the last 12 months in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen and a City Office in Brussels that opened in 2004.

Rosling has lived in Mumbai since 1998. Prior to joining the Tatas, he was chairman of the Jardine Matheson Group in India.

He started his career in 1983 as an investment banker with S.G. Warburg, later working with Courtaulds, United Distillers and Jardine Matheson.

He was special advisor to former Prime Minister John Major and a member of the No 10 Downing Street Policy Unit.

Educated at Downing College, Cambridge, Rosling, currently chairs the British Business Group, Mumbai, and the British Committee of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce.

"With the rapid growth of the Indian economy, and its integration with world markets, the long-standing links between India and the City of London have revived and developed,” Rosling said.

“There is enormous potential for the City to provide a range of services to Indian companies and financial institutions,” he added.

Among the activities the Mumbai office will undertake are:

• To promote the City to the Indian government and businesses as a source of international capital and expertise required by India as it engages more closely with the global economy.
• To assist City firms in their work of engagement with India by providing advice, organising visits and events and making available meeting space.
• To encourage Indian financial and related business services organisations seeking a physical European presence to look to the City as their natural destination.
• To identify formal and informal barriers to trade in financial and business services and to pass this information to the government and to others qualified to take such matters further.
• To generate market and economic intelligence and to pass this on to the City community via the Economic Development Office in London.