India and the UK are aiming to sign their Free Trade Agreement (FTA) by July-end, as legal teams from both sides work overtime to get the formal text of the pact ready.
To give directions to the officials involved in the last mile formalities, commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal and additional secretary L Satya Srinivas will be in London for the next two days. They will also be holding meetings with their counterparts from the UK and UK secretary of state for trade and business Jonathan Reynolds.
The visit of the top officials of the Department of Commerce follows the visit of Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal to the UK last week. Goyal met his counterpart Reynolds and both sides also held a negotiation meeting and reviewed the progress prior to the signing.
The Indian legal team is also in London for the legal scrubbing of the text.
The conclusion of FTA negotiations between India and the UK was announced on May 6.
Earlier officials said that it might take three months to get the text of the FTA ready for signing.
After the agreement is signed it will be made public. Then it has to be ratified by both countries before it comes into force.
In the UK the ratification is done by the Parliament and this process could take up to a year. For India the ratification of agreements is done by the cabinet. So it could take up to 15 months from now for the FTA to become operational.
The FTA will remove taxes on the export of labour-intensive products from India such as leather, footwear and clothing, while making imports of whisky and cars from Britain cheaper. Through the FTA both sides are aiming to double their trade to $ 120 billion by 2030. The pact will also liberalise services trade and make the movement of professionals easier.
Along with FTA, the social security agreement or Double Contribution Contributions Convention has also been agreed to. Both sides are now engaged in finalising the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT).