U.K. ‘committed’ to negotiating a trade deal with India: Downing Street

Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds will be visiting India at the end of the month for relaunching the India-United Kingdom FTA talks.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The U.K. , under the Labour government, remains “committed” to negotiating a trade deal with India, Downing Street has said, as it confirmed that U.K. Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds will visit India at the end of the month for the re-launch of negotiations.

Talks were paused in March 2024, before both countries went to the polls. The two countries launched trade talks in January 2022 and have completed 14 rounds of negotiations.

In addition to looking for greater goods market access for certain exports, India is looking for the greater ease of movement of its students as well as other citizens to deliver services , such as in the healthcare and IT sectors. The U.K. is looking for tariff cuts from India on goods including whiskey, chocolates, confectionary goods and electric vehicles. It is also looking for market access for its services sector, such as in legal, telecommunications and financial services.

Asked about whether facilitating the movement of people across borders to deliver services was going to be challenging, given the tough-line U.K. Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, has adopted on immigration, U.K. officials sought to separate out the temporary movement of individuals and immigration.

“…”Trade and immigration are separate issues, business mobility and the temporary movement of business persons on a short term and temporary basis, are features in trade negotiations and supports trade,” a foreign affairs spokesperson for Mr Starmer told The Hindu at a briefing on Friday.

“ But business mobility commitments are separate to permanent migration, and we keep those separate from trade talks,” the spokesperson said.

Both sides have played down the movement of persons issue or to separate the issue from migration.

In public remarks in June last year, India’s High Commissioner to the U.K. Vikram Doraiswami had said that visas were not the first priority for India in these trade talks and that India was not looking at the FTA as a means to bring people to the U.K., but for a reasonable level of movement of people to deliver services under Mode 4 of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).