India trade talks set to be revived with first major UK ministerial visit

London: 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 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.

A 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.

“India is keen to resume talks on a positive note, but the date needs clarity,” the source told the newspaper.

“The 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,” the source added.

During his last major intervention on India-UK relations just days before Labour's 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.

"My message to [Finance] Minister [Nirmala] Sitharaman and [Trade] Minister [Piyush] Goyal is that Labour is ready to go. Let’s finally get our free trade deal done and move on,” he said, lamenting former prime minister Boris Johnson’s missed Diwali 2022 deadline.

“With 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... because with a superpower like India, the areas of cooperation and the areas for learning are limitless,” he said.

On 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 “priority” for India.

He explained: “What we're 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'd like to offer to the UK." “Visas 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," he said.

"What we're 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.,” he added.  The Prime Minister Keir Starmer-led Labour Party manifesto pledged to seek a “new strategic partnership with India, including a free trade agreement, as well as deepening cooperation in areas like security, education, technology and climate change”. 

Lammy’s expected visit to India next week, on his way to the 57th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting at Vientiane in Lao People's Democratic Republic, is expected to set the tone for how this pledge is to be realised.