London, 21 Jul: The renewed parameters of the India-UK free trade agreement negotiations are set to be defined this week as UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy is expected in India on Tuesday, the first high-profile visit under the newly elected Labour government in Britain.
\nThe free trade agreement (FTA) talks began in January 2022, under the then Conservative government, with a target to significantly boost the GBP 38.1 billion a year bilateral trading partnership but hit a block in the fourteenth round of negotiations to make way for general elections in both countries.
\nA report in The Daily Telegraph on Sunday quotes a New Delhi source to claim the Indian side would seek clarity on whether the Labour government intends to pick things up from where they were left off or start afresh in some way.
\n\u201cIndia is keen to resume talks on a positive note, but the date needs clarity,\u201d the source told the newspaper.
\n\u201cThe trade deal was at the final stage in the previous government, and we want to see whether the Labour government wants to start from where we left it in March before the elections or start afresh from scratch. Our stance on visas for professionals remains unchanged. We are expecting a positive outcome under the Labour government,\u201d the source added.
\nDuring his last major intervention on India-UK relations just days before Labour\u2019s landslide electoral victory earlier this month, Lammy told India Global Forum (IGF) in London that he intends to get the deal done as soon as possible.
\n\u201cMy message to [Finance] Minister [Nirmala] Sitharaman and [Trade] Minister [Piyush] Goyal is that Labour is ready to go. Let\u2019s finally get our free trade deal done and move on,\u201d he said, lamenting former prime minister Boris Johnson\u2019s missed Diwali 2022 deadline.
\n\u201cWith Labour, the days of Boris Johnson reciting that old verse from Rudyard Kipling in Asia are over. If I recite a poem in India, it will be Tagore\u2026 because with a superpower like India, the areas of cooperation and the areas for learning are limitless,\u201d he said.
\nOn visas, which have been touted in the UK media as a major sticking point in the talks, High Commissioner Vikram Doraiswami clarified at the same summit that it is not the \u201cpriority\u201d for India.
\nHe explained: \u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do with this free trade agreement is to increase the depth or the extent of ambition, including in goods and services, that we\u2019d like to offer to the UK.\u201d \u201cVisas are not the first priority for us in an FTA. We are not looking at the FTA as a means to bring people to the UK, that is not the objective,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cWhat we\u2019re looking for is whatever is reasonable within the broad framework of international trade and services under Mode 4 of GATS [General Agreement on Trade in Services of the World Trade Organisation] to be able to have persons travelled for intercompany transfers etc.,\u201d he added.
\nThe Prime Minister Keir Starmer-led Labour Party manifesto pledged to seek a \u201cnew strategic partnership with India, including a free trade agreement, as well as deepening cooperation in areas like security, education, technology and climate change\u201d. (PTI)
\nLammy\u2019s expected visit to India next week, on his way to the 57th ASEAN Foreign Ministers\u2019 Meeting at Vientiane in Lao People\u2019s Democratic Republic, is expected to set the tone for how this pledge is to be realised. (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
London, 21 Jul: The renewed parameters of the India-UK free trade agreement negotiations are set to be defined this week as UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy is expected in India on Tuesday, the first high-profile visit under the newly elected Labour government in Britain. The free trade agreement (FTA) talks began in January 2022, under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-244846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-national"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}