Joint UK-India Carrier Strike Group train deepens defence ties as offers enhance UK jobs

• The UK’s Carrier Strike Group (CSG) visited Mumbai and Goa, conducting workout routines within the Indian Ocean.

• Strategic partnership with India strengthened via joint workout routines between the UK and the Indian militaries, strengthening regional safety and cooperation

• CSG departs Indo-Pacific as two new defence offers with India enhance British enterprise and jobs, following the Prime Minister’s go to final week.

Britain’s strategic partnership with India continues to develop because the highly effective UK-led Carrier Strike Group (CSG25) carried out navy drills with the Indian Armed Forces, finishing a profitable go to to India as a part of its ongoing eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific area, referred to as Operation Highmast.

During the go to, plane provider HMS Prince of Wales and accompanying vessels joined with the Indian Navy’s Carrier Strike Group, led by the plane provider INS Vikrant. This joint exercise, referred to as Exercise Konkan, was carried out within the western Indian Ocean, and enhanced the warfighting capabilities of each nations, via growing deeper understanding between the 2 militaries.

HMS Prince of Wales and the UK Carrier Strike Group carried out mixed air workout routines with the Indian Air Force, additional demonstrating the rising strategic alignment between each nations within the area, and serving to maintain Britian safe at dwelling and powerful overseas.

Operation Highmast displays the UK’s world defence ambitions, underpinned by the Government’s dedication to extend defence spending to 2.6% of GDP from 2027, delivering on the Plan for Change and making defence an engine for progress

Defence Minister Lord Vernon Coaker stated: 

It has been unbelievable to see the energy and attain of the UK Armed Forces because the Carrier Strike Group continued its deployment in South Asia this week.  

Alongside our management on world safety, we have now showcased modern defence innovation which strengthens our buying and selling relationship with India and secures British jobs.  

This strategic partnership assist maintain us safe at dwelling and powerful overseas, whereas the commerce hyperlinks promise a beneficial enhance to the UK financial system – demonstrating as soon as once more that defence is an engine for progress.

British High Commissioner to India, Lindy Cameron, stated: 

India, because the world’s largest democracy and an rising financial superpower with one of many quickest rising economies on the planet, is a prime precedence accomplice for the UK. The go to of the UK’s Carrier Strike Group to India was testomony to the energy of the connection between our two international locations, which has been revitalised by our two Prime Ministers in current months.

Together the UK and India are actually targeted on the longer term with our shared imaginative and prescient for 2035, delivering progress, prosperity and safety in a time of fast world change.

The CSG go to and joint workout routines additional strengthen a rising navy partnership with India, following a brand new £350 million deal, which is about to ship UK-manufactured Lightweight Multirole Missiles (LMM) to the Indian Army, showcasing defence as an engine for progress.

Over 700 jobs will likely be secured in Northern Ireland as a result of contract because the air defence missiles and launchers as a result of be manufactured for the Indian Army are the identical as these at the moment being manufactured in Belfast for Ukraine.

This new military-industrial collaboration will improve interoperability between the UK and Indian Armed Forces whereas boosting the UK’s place as a number one defence exporter. The deal paves the best way for a broader advanced weapons partnership between the UK and India, at the moment beneath negotiation between the 2 governments, following the Prime Minister’s go to to Mumbai final week.

Last week, a brand new milestone was additionally reached within the UK and India’s cooperation on electric-powered engines for naval ships as each international locations signed the Implementing Arrangement to advance collaboration to the following stage, price an preliminary £250M.

CSG25 will depart the Indo-Pacific area, sure for the Mediterranean Sea for the ultimate part of the deployment previous to returning to UK waters by the tip of the yr.

Throughout the deployment, the strike group will advance navy interoperability with companions and supply vital defence engagement alternatives that strengthen the UK’s world community of defence partnerships, reinforcing our dedication to a permanent presence within the Indo-Pacific.