Focus
TRH to attend the opening of the Commonwealth Games in India
22nd September 2010
The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall will undertake an official visit to India from 2nd to 5th October 2010.
Earlier this year Her Majesty The Queen asked The Prince of Wales to represent her at the Opening of the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. In addition, Their Royal Highnesses will spend time with athletes from a broad cross-section of Commonwealth countries.
Given the importance of relations between India and the United Kingdom, and following the Prime Minister’s recent visit, the Government has asked Their Royal Highnesses to support British interests by adding a short programme of engagements to their attendance at the Games. Given the short time available and the distances involved in travel around India Their Royal Highnesses will build on the success of their visit in 2006 with a series of events in Delhi, Punjab and Rajasthan where they will see recent progress in the fields of bilateral trade and investment promotion, education, military co-operation, protection of the environment and youth entrepreneurship. These are key priorities for the British and Indian Governments.
With bilateral trade standing at £11 billion per year and Indian investment in the UK worth approximately £9 billion, The Prince of Wales will meet senior business leaders to support continued growth of this area of Britain’s economy. The Prince has visited India on many previous occasions and has placed great emphasis on supporting and encouraging the British Indian origin community for more than 30 years, most recently establishing his British Asian Trust in 2007. With The Duchess of Cornwall, he will take the opportunity to celebrate growing co-operation between our two countries.
At the British Government’s request, climate change is at the heart of the programme. Events in Delhi , Chandigarh and Jodhpur will focus on different aspects of this important challenge and assist international efforts to build partnerships between the private, public and NGO sectors. This builds on the success of Their Royal Highnesses’ many official overseas visits in recent years including The Prince of Wales’s opening speech at the Copenhagen Climate Summit last December.
The Prince of Wales has made six official visits to India . It will be The Duchess of Cornwall’s second official visit to India. Her Royal Highness accompanied The Prince during a visit to India 2006.