{"id":57425,"date":"2025-04-28T12:24:15","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T12:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/57425\/"},"modified":"2025-04-28T12:24:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T12:24:15","slug":"britain-very-close-to-post-brexit-trade-deal-with-india-amid-claims-negotiators-have-backed-off-demands-for-big-concessions-on-visas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/57425\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain ‘very close’ to post-Brexit trade deal with India amid claims negotiators have backed off demands for big concessions on visas"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK is ‘very close’ to signing a post-Brexit trade deal with India<\/a>, according to a leading British-Indian businessman.<\/p>\n

Lord Bilimoria, a crossbench peer who founded the Cobra beer brand, said he had been told by senior Indian politicians that an agreement would soon be concluded.<\/p>\n

Britain has been in negotiations with India over a free trade agreement since early 2022, with Labour<\/a> having relaunched stalled talks in February this year.<\/p>\n

The possibility of a trade deal with New Delhi has long been viewed as one of the bigger prizes of Britain’s departure from the EU.<\/p>\n

Negotiations stumbled under the previous Tory<\/a> government over demands for the UK to grant more visas to Indian workers as the price of an agreement.<\/p>\n

But, according to reports, India has now accepted the UK will only offer minor changes to visa rules.<\/p>\n

Piyush Goyal, India’s commerce minister and chief trade negotiator, is meeting with Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds in London today and tomorrow to continue talks.<\/p>\n

Lord Bilimoria revealed both Mr Goyal and\u00a0Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s finance minister, talked up the likelihood of an agreement when he met them last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Piyush <\/p>\n

Piyush Goyal (right), India’s chief trade negotiator, is meeting with Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds (left) in London this week. They are pictured together in February<\/p>\n

\"According <\/p>\n

According to reports, India has now accepted the UK will only offer minor changes to visa rules as part of a trade agreement<\/p>\n

\"Lord <\/p>\n

Lord Bilimoria, a crossbench peer who founded the Cobra beer brand, said he had been told by senior Indian politicians that an agreement would soon be concluded<\/p>\n

‘Both of them told me very, very clearly that we are very close to concluding this free trade agreement,’ Lord Bilimoria told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.<\/p>\n

The peer, who is the UK chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce and a former president of the Confederation of British Industry, added: ‘It’s three years that these negotiations have been going on.<\/p>\n

‘And we’re now, I think, very, very close to concluding it. We need to do this because India has already overtaken the UK and is now the fifth-largest economy in the world.<\/p>\n

‘Very soon it will be the third-largest economy in the world, by 2030. I say it will be the largest economy in the world by 2060.<\/p>\n

‘It’s the fastest-growing major economy in the world with a 6 per cent plus growth rate. And, yet, India is only the 12th-largest trading partner of the UK with about $50billion of trade.<\/p>\n

‘We need to be doing much more with India and this free trade agreement, I think, will turbocharge and be a catalyst for growing trade, business and investment bilaterally both ways between our countries.<\/p>\n

‘I think we could double that $50billion to $100billion within five years.’<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0Politico<\/a>, the mobility chapter of the UK-India trade deal has been finalised in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

The new rules will lead to around 100 new visas for Indian workers each year, a UK official told the website.<\/p>\n

India had originally proposed larger quotas for professionals, particularly in sectors like IT and healthcare.<\/p>\n

Mr Goyal is expected to push the UK Government for carve-outs for Indian firms on carbon taxes on his trip to London this week.<\/p>\n

New Delhi is also hoping for concessions from Britain on Indian firms being able to claw back payments to the UK’s state pension pot for those on short-stay visas.<\/p>\n

A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson said: ‘This Government is committed to doing the right deal with India which will improve access for UK businesses, cut tariffs, and make trade cheaper and easier.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Talks have been ongoing since they were re-launched in February, and we will only sign a deal that is in the best interests of the British people and drives growth across the UK.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK is ‘very close’ to signing a post-Brexit trade deal with India, according to a leading British-Indian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,92,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,12,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-57425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-dailymail","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114415577628734031","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}