India and UK likely to sign FTA this year, but visas no longer offered, UK minister says

Kemi Badenok traveled to New Delhi last month to kick off the sixth round of FTA negotiations with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, but the deadline set last year by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson for the Diwali Agreement seems unrealistic. said it was necessary. Must be changed.

The UK’s trade secretary recently dismissed the possibility that there are significant similarities between the FTA the UK has signed with India and the FTA with Australia.

“We left the European Union because we did not support free movement and did not find it effective,” Badenok said. Regarding the provision of additional visas, Badenok said this was not about negotiating free movement with India.

The minister indicated that he was willing to compromise on issues such as business travel, but the Indians could enter into the same kind of deal as the Australians, allowing anyone under 35 to live and work in the UK for three years. denied the possibility of receiving

The mutual UK-India Young Professionals Scheme, officially launched earlier this month, will grant 3,000 recent graduates between the ages of 18 and 30 visas to live and work in either country for up to two years. is believed to have overcome this obstacle.

“The trade agreements we sign have to be tailored to each country,” Badenok said. No, a country like India with many times the population.”

“And what people in the UK want to do when they travel to Australia will probably be slightly different than when they travel to India,” she told The Times.

Badenok repeats the more flexible approach of the current government, led by Rishi Sunak, and distances himself from the Tory government’s approach before FTA negotiations with deadlines he called “useless”. .

“The mantra ‘Trade on Diwali’ is one of the things I’ve changed since becoming Secretary of Commerce. I tell people it’s about trading, not the day. Everything needs to be done. Having a fixed date allows the negotiations to take less time for the other party,” she said.

Johnson set Diwali 2022 as the deadline for the FTA during his visit to India as Prime Minister last April. However, that deadline was abandoned due to significant political turmoil in the UK, and most ministers have since been reluctant to set a new deadline.

“We’re thinking about getting a deal done this year. I don’t know when it will be. But if things don’t settle after a while, people will move on either side. We are very eager to sign the contract.” Badenoch.

India and the UK are currently trading around £29.6 billion a year, according to official UK government data. The parties formally launched his FTA negotiations early last year, and then, after the deadline for Diwali in October 2022, Sunak announced his FTA without “sacrifice quality for speed.” We promised to go “at pace” towards

(with input from PTI)