PM Modi, Sunak welcome progress in FTA talks

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his British counterpart Rishi Sunak discussed the proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and the United Kingdom during a phone call on Tuesday – just days after New Delhi clinched a deal with a bloc comprising Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

Modi posted on X that he and Sunak had reaffirmed the commitment of their respective governments “to further strengthen the bilateral Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and work for the early conclusion of a mutually beneficial FTA”.

The two leaders spoke over the phone even as uncertainty loomed large over the proposed FTA with India set to go to parliamentary polls in April-May and the UK later this year.

The Election Commission (EC) is likely to announce the schedule of the Lok Sabha polls soon. The government will not be able to take any major decision, like approving the India-UK FTA, when the Model Code of Conduct will come into force immediately after the announcement of the poll schedule by the EC.

A team of UK negotiators left New Delhi for London last Friday after the 14th round of talks with their counterparts in India did not result in any immediate breakthrough on the last remaining issues holding up the deal.

British Trade Minister trade minister Kemi Badenoch suggested that it would be ‘challenging’ for the UK to sign a free trade deal with India before the elections in the South Asian nation.

Though negotiations on most of the chapters of the proposed India-UK trade deal have concluded over the past two years, the two sides, however, could not narrow differences over issues like visas, social security, and market access.

India-UK FTA negotiations started almost two years back.

With Sunak’s Conservative Party government likely to face a stiff challenge from the Labour Party led by Keir Starmer in the UK parliamentary polls, New Delhi, according to the sources, may wait for a new regime led by a prime minister to take over in London, in order to get a better deal on some of the issues.