India-UK FTA: Trade talks taking time to safeguard India’s national interests

Negotiations between India and the United Kingdom for the proposed free trade agreement are at an advanced stage but India is keen to safeguard its interests.

Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal on Thursday said the negotiations are taking time because “we want” to safeguard India’s interest. “India should commercially gain out of it and we should also be able to safeguard the interest of our farmers, PLI (production linked incentive) scheme goods. So, we are there to see that the deal is a fair deal,” he told reporters at a press briefing.

According to senior commerce ministry officials, the negotiations are on at a senior level with efforts on to iron out remaining differences. The officials however, declined to give a timeline for the completion of the talks.

The 14th round of talks between the two countries started on January 10 and both countries have been keen on concluding the negotiations and signing the agreement ahead of national elections in both countries.

Meanwhile, the commerce ministry is also in the midst of trade negotiations with other countries. The seventh round of talks on the India- European Union FTA is scheduled to take place in New Delhi from February 19 to 23. In June 2022, India and the EU restarted the negotiations for the long-pending trade and investment agreement on Friday after a gap of over eight years.

On the India-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), Rajesh Agrawal, Additional Secretary in the commerce ministry said that legal scrubbing of text on clean and fair economy agreements is underway. The supply chain resilience pact will come into force from February 24 this year.

Talks between India and Peru for a trade pact are also underway with the next round of negotiations likely to take place from April. “The sixth round of India -Peru negotiations for a Trade Agreement was held from February 12 to 14, 2024, in Lima, Peru, to continue the work that started in 2017 when the negotiation process was formally announced,” said an official statement by the commerce ministry.

In the last two decades, the trade between India and Peru has increased significantly, from US$ 66 million in 2003 to around US$ 3.68 billion in 2023.

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