Forget China, here’s why you should invest in India

As China becomes increasingly hostile to investors, India, with a young, educated, tech-savvy population and a reform-minded government, is becoming an emerging-market favourite. Merryn Somerset Webb picks the best ways to invest.

Bombay Stock Exchange
Indian stocks aren't cheap, but are worth getting exposure to
(Image credit: © PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP via Getty Images)

UK savers put £31.3bn into their pensions in the year to April 2020, according to numbers released recently. That was up from £27.9bn the year before, says HM Revenue & Customs.

Some 9.4 million people contributed to their personal pensions – with an average annual contribution of around £3,300. Add up all the tax reliefs this comes with, and the net cost to state coffers was over £22bn. That last number is key – it doesn’t just represent the immediate income tax relief you get when you contribute but the capital gains tax and the dividend taxes you never have to pay when your money is protected in a pension.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.