The United Kingdom sees a potential for collaboration in advanced engineering with businesses in Bengal.

Addressing the annual general meeting of the Oriental Chamber of Commerce on Saturday, Peter Cook, acting British Deputy High Commissioner, Calcutta, said that the UK wants to see more investments in Bengal and in India in sectors such as engineering, ed-tech, health tech, biotech, agri tech, food processing industries and the information technology industry.

Collaborations gain importance as the two countries are currently negotiating a foreign trade agreement that could unlock jobs, investment and exports.

“There are 10 UK universities coming to Bengal looking for partnerships, looking for projects, looking for research and collaboration in new technologies. We believe through education we can provide the research, innovation, new inventions, the science, the patents that we are going to need in order to build the new technologies of the future,” Cook said.

“We have one of our universities that is looking to try and establish an engineering research centre. We want to discuss with Calcutta businesses and universities how we can rebuild the engineering capital of India.

“Calcutta used to be that engineering capital. We need to look at new technologies in order to achieve that,” he said.