Indian students are welcome: UK

Concerned that there are fewer Indians studying in Britain now, the UK today affirmed that there is no cap their number and they are more than welcome to pursue education.

UK Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills Vince Cable, who is on India visit, also expressed Britain's keenness to work in the aerospace and SME sectors, while seeking to improve the bilateral trade.

"We really now trying to come back...number of Indian students are actually falling at a time when number of Chinese students are rising rapidly.

"And we know what the reason is... there was certain perception that the UK was not welcoming. But actually they are welcome and there are no caps on numbers," Cable said at the 9th meeting of India-UK joint Economic & Trade Committee (JETCO).

He said that students can also go for employment after graduation.

"I hope that message will get out that we are open and welcoming to Indian students," he added.

Later speaking at an interaction organised by Ficci, Cable said: "More worrying from our point of view, we have seen statistics that show quite a significant decline in the number of Indian students coming to Britain because they feel that they are not welcome".

"So, we have an unusual position now where we are welcoming Indian students. Indian students are declining, and Chinese students rapidly growing. That makes no sense. We really do want to reverse that. We are trying to improve the image of Britain for people coming from India," he said.

Earlier, Britain had scrapped the controversial 3,000-pound visa bond scheme for some "high risk" overseas visitors to the  country, including those from India, which was scheduled to be implemented on a pilot scale from November this year.