As talks on India-UK free trade agreement (FTA) enter final stages, a high-level delegation of Indian officials will be visiting London to try and resolve the pending issues where breakthrough is proving hard, sources said Tuesday.
This visit comes in the midst of the 14th round of talks which started on January 10. Last week the Prime Minister’s office held a review of the status of negotiations. A similar high-level delegation from the UK had visited India between January 23-25.
The chief negotiators of both the countries would hold negotiations on different issues such as goods, services, and rules of origin.
India-UK FTA has 26 chapters or policy areas and majority of chapters are either closed or in final stages of negotiations. Sources said that the attempt of this visit would be to close the remaining issues.
FTA negotiations between India and UK started in January 2022 and since then on many occasions there have been hints that the negotiations are about to conclude but the talks still continue.
Along with the FTA, India and the UK are also negotiating a Bilateral Investment Treaty which will be signed along with the FTA.
The UK is an important trading partner of India. In the last financial year the bilateral merchandise trade between the two increased to $ 20.36 billion from $ 17.5 billion in 2021-22.