The India-UK FTA may be close to finalisation and there is optimism that the two sides could deliver “mutually beneficial” results, UK Secretary of State for International Trade Kemi Badenoch has said.
“We are now in the final stages. I can’t give a deadline, anything could happen. But what I can say is that I am very optimistic, and I am working closely with my counterpart, Minister to make sure we can deliver something that both our countries will find mutually beneficial,” Badenoch said at a media interaction on the sidelines of the G20 Trade & Investment Ministerial Meeting in Jaipur on Thursday.
When asked about liberalisation of the visa regime for Indians, Badenoch said it was only business mobility that came into the trade framework. “Bilateral investment leads to local business mobility. These are things which we are actively discussing,” she said.
India-EU FTA
The EU, too, is hopeful of advancing conversations with India on the India-EU FTA and other trade and investment related issues, according to EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis.
“We will also use this occasion to discuss our bilateral relations and how we are advancing conversations on free trade agreement and other trade and investment related issues,” Dombrovskis said at the venue of the G20 meet in Jaipur.
India is working on Bilateral Investment Treaty with both UK and the EU and there are expectations that both the FTAs and the BITs would be simultaneously concluded.
The EU is continuing to insist on the BIT having a dispute resolution system which follows an investor court model and it is not comfortable with the exhaustion of local remedies clause in India’s model BIT, sources tracking the matter have said.
According to the EU’s proposal, an independent and international panel or court should be permanently appointed to decide on an investment-related disputes, that India is resisting.
In the bilateral talks between India and the EU on the G20 sidelines, India is expected to raise the issue of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and look for a way out that is suitable to both, sources said.
While India has indicated that the CBAM, under which the EU proposes to impose carbon taxes on sectors such as steel and aluminium from 2026, is not WTO compatible, the EU has been insisting that it is non-discriminatory.
(Travel for the correspondent has been sponsored by the Commerce & Industry Ministry)