India and foreign aid

[Minusorange]

So while India are planning manned space flights by 2022

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...st-manned-space-mission-by-2022-idUSKBN1L009E

We are still sending them foreign aid

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dfid-india-profile-july-2018

£52million for 18/19
£46million for 19/20

Why are we sending them aid when they are sending rockets into space while back at home we have very little innovative industry, have high street shops constantly closing down as more & more people turn to online shopping and continue to see poor economic growth

It makes no sense that we're effectively funding their space program

 

[Minusorange]

While that seems like a lot, I would like to point out that we spend around £13 billion total yearly. So that's relatively small fry. But I get your point, India is a fairly developed nation. And just to point out, that 13 billion is more than the budget or policing in England and Wales, make of that what you will.

Oh I know, apart from Pakistan, because they have their own nuclear weapons they can afford I have no issue with most other places getting foreign aid as they actually need it.

If you have your own space program though, you really shouldn't be receiving any form of aid because you've clearly got money

 

[Minusorange]

Which is great for us folks buying stuff from them.

What are we buying from India though apart from cheap Call centre support and Microsoft support scams ?

Neither are really useful for the UK people

 

[Minusorange]

£3.5b is imported from India annually (or thereabouts). Cars, car parts, clothes, food, leather and gold amongst various other things. Oh and a large chunk of our doctors.

Surely India needs us to keep importing that £3.5b worth of goods vs us sending them £56million a year ?

So we don't pay them that money, what are they going to do ? Stop us from importing and lose £3.5billion worth of GDP ?

It sure seems like we don't need to bribe them in order to buy £3.5billion worth of goods off them

 

[Minusorange]

It's silly to think we'll stop trading. But they might reduce the amount they import from us in favor of another nation. If that costs UK business even only say £300m, surely that's worth it?

I don't think they would reduce their imports from us because we could just equally reduce our imports from them

The fact we have to pay a country to both import and export goods to/from us just sounds so silly

I'm not buying the whole bribe for trade idea because they need our trade as much as we need theirs