The relaunch of UK-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations remain on track and a visit by Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar is on the cards for spring, Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the House of Commons this week.
During a discussion on the role of international partners in the UK’s Economic Growth, Labour MP Dr Jeevun Sandher asked Lammy about the progress of trade talks and getting a “good UK-India trade deal over the line”.
Sandher, co-chair of the India All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), said: “This is indeed an exciting year to help improve our economic growth and our trading relationship with India. We are two nations with an intertwined history and common democratic ideals, and we face the risks of a dangerous world and a warming planet.
“Can the Secretary of State outline what he will do to help get a good UK-India trade deal over the line, including the exchange of green technologies to help prevent and reduce the warming of our planet?”
MORE LIKE THIS…
Lammy noted that Prime Ministers Keir Starmer and Narendra Modi committed to an ambitious refresh of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership during their meeting at the G20 Summit in Brazil in November 2024.
The Foreign Secretary told the House of Commons: “It was important to get to India just a few weeks into office. I might pray in aid my great-grandmother on my mother’s side, who was from Calcutta. I look forward to inviting Foreign Minister Jaishankar to Britain later in the spring. It is important that we have a strategic partnership going forward.
“We have relaunched the Free Trade Agreement — we have said that it is a floor, not a ceiling on our ambition — and it was important that a delegation of Indian businessmen met the Chancellor of the Exchequer, me and the Prime Minister just a few weeks before Christmas.”
