Blitz Bureau
INDIA and the UK are likely to resume negotiations on a free trade agreement on February 24. A team of negotiators from the UK is expected to visit New Delhi to start the 15th round of talks.
“It is expected that UK’s Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Jonathan Reynolds, will be in India for the FTA talks,” according to sources.
Also, a large business delegation from the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) bloc—Switzerland, Norway, Iceland & Liechtenstein—, is expected in India next week to look at opportunities to increase trade and investment with the country, the source added.
The three-day visit of a large business delegation from EFTA countries to India starting February 10 is likely to boost trade and investment ties between the two partners in the light of the Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) signed on March 10, 2024.
The meetings are taking place at a time when US President Donald Trump is reiterating his tariff threats against European countries. Negotiations on the FTA have been on hold for around a year. The India-UK FTA negotiations were launched in January 2022 and since then 14 rounds of talks have been held between officials of both sides. However, some of the issues are still to be sorted.
The UK is demanding greater market access in automobiles, whiskey and some other trade-related issues like rules of origin and intellectual property rights.
In the services sector, the UK is seeking national treatment for its companies. India’s demand for easier access to the UK market to its professionals through a liberal visa regime is one of the areas where common ground is eluding the negotiators.
The talks for the agreement may get an impetus as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1 proposed to raise the foreign investment limit to 100 per cent in the insurance sector as part of new-generation financial sector reforms. The visit comes against the backdrop of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announcing an early 2025 relaunch of UK-India FTA talks. The announcement followed his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Brazil last November.
