British PM's India visit to focus on trade ties

Prime Minister David Cameron will take a planeload of Cabinet ministers and business leaders to India during his visit to the country which is expected to begin next Wednesday, seeking to boost trade links with the former 'jewel in the crown' of the erstwhile British empire.

In the first example of the new focus on trade in foreign policy, the British delegation will make "an unprecedented attempt to woo this rising world power" during the visit, according to Tory MP Jo Johnson, brother of London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Cameron has been highly critical of the last Government's approach to the so-called BRIC emerging economies - Brazil, Russia, India and China. Former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown visited India but failed to create what Cameron is dubbing a "special relations", the Guardian reported.

"By dispatching himself and so many of his most senior colleagues to India, and so early on, Cameron is making a clear signal of his intent to revitalise a critical, bilateral relationship and repair what he regards as a decade of neglect," Johnson wrote in this week's Spectator.