Dipankar De Sarkar/IANS

London, Jun 18: India has emerged as the second largest investor in Britain, with a recession-busting 44 percent jump in the number of projects it has created since 2008, new figures reveal.

Projects created or brought in by Indian investments number 108 -- behind top-ranking US's 621 and just ahead of third-ranked France's 101, the British government's trade and investment department said.

Indian investments have led to 4,139 new jobs since last year, contributing to a total pool of nearly 8,000 British jobs that the Indians have created amid job-losses brought on by the global recession.

"We are delighted with this news. There is absolutely no doubt that Indian investment into the UK has grown substantially over the last decade," Britain's Minister for Trade, Investment and Business Mervyn Davies said Wednesday.

In 2007-08, Indian investments ranked seventh in a list of 53 of the world's leading economies.

Davies, who was in India for business and official meetings last week, said India and Britain now needed to forge partnerships in new areas, including aerospace and advanced security, to give their business ties a further boost.

Davies said he had met with representatives of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) at the Paris air show recently and discussed entering into "partnerships" with India in the areas of aerospace and advanced security, in which Britain had "excellence".

"That is clearly over the next few years a huge area of focus for UKTI (department of Trade and Industry)," he told a news conference.

Davies said he was "incredibly pleased" with the investment figures - a rare bit of good news in the current recessionary climate.

"Global flows of Foreign Direct Investments were forecast to fall very heavily. Yet, more investments are coming into the UK than anytime before," Davies said.