The UK’s minister driving the free commerce settlement (FTA) negotiations with India mentioned on Wednesday that the Diwali deadline set for a deal is an efficient “landing point” as there’s “real optimism” on either side.
UK Secretary of State for International Trade Anne-Marie Trevelyan was giving proof to the House of Commons International Trade Committee when she was requested concerning the timeline introduced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson throughout his go to to India final week.
The minister mentioned the negotiating groups, at the moment in India for the third spherical of FTA talks, have been “going at pace” and if they arrive throughout “bumps in the road”, these will likely be handled accordingly.
“Diwali seems like a good landing point. Like all of these things, if you provide a political anchor it helps drive the energy,” mentioned Trevelyan, in response to questions from the cross-party parliamentary committee.
“But we may yet come across areas of disagreement and need more time on (them). But our respective Prime Ministers have given us that landing zone and there is real optimism and real effort on both sides… the team are out there this week moving into the next stage, looking at the various chapters where those areas of agreement are and indeed looking at the text already, which is really exciting,” she mentioned.
“The Prime Minister was out last weekend, helping champion all the work that my team are doing to move forwards on an India FTA,” she added.
The senior Cabinet minister additionally indicated that whereas an interim settlement by mid-April forward of a full-fledged FTA by year-end had been on the agenda, there was a mindset shift on the Indian aspect to go forward for a accomplished settlement by October.
“It (interim agreement) is a tool, but their mindset has changed since doing deals with Australia and UAE. Getting an interim agreement by mid-April fell away by virtue of resource capacity within their trade team,” mentioned Trevelyan, on the subject of India’s lately concluded commerce agreements with Australia and the UAE.
“Actually, now having had two rounds of talks with their fantastic team, there is a sense that we probably can do more than perhaps those early conversations; which is why we have all set ourselves the challenge to see if we can draw what will be the broad FTA that both parties want to see through the course of this year,” she mentioned.
The minister was additionally questioned about India’s “neutrality” within the Russia-Ukraine battle and its influence on the talks.
However, Trevelyan was clear that the “trade track” of the bilateral relationship was not tied in with the diplomatic aspect.
“Every country takes a position. India’s taken a neutral position… The key is that trade deals aren’t the tool for the broader diplomatic agreement discussion. Those continue and there’s continuing discussions around areas of policy difference, whatever they might be,” she mentioned.
“What we will continue to do is encourage everybody to think about how their relationship, either with Russia or indeed with Ukraine, can be enhanced or reduced in order to bring this war to an end as quickly as we can,” she famous.
The minister highlighted that whereas traditionally, FTAs have been very a lot about “straight forward movement of goods”, they’re now about wanting past to areas equivalent to innovation.
On a particular query on whether or not her negotiating group has a mandate to lift points across the Russia-Ukraine battle, she mentioned: “No, they have a very clear mandate to continue discussing the broad range of trade issues that we want to see in a trade deal with India.” The minister reiterated that the UK desires to see a “broad partnership” masking defence and strategic ties and as a part of these discussions UK minister of state for defence procurement Jeremy Quin has been out in India for the previous few days speaking to his counterparts in India.
“So, lots of different tracks going on but for the FTA, we have a mandate from across Whitehall and the team are cracking on with making progress and we’ll see how we go. We hope we can make good progress, but we may yet encounter challenges,” she mentioned.
During his two-day go to to India, Johnson had introduced that he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have instructed the negotiators to get the FTA achieved by Diwali, which falls on October 24 this 12 months.
On the eve of the go to, officers had confirmed that 4 out of 26 chapters inside the FTA have been finalised through the first two rounds because the negotiations started in January and “significant progress” has been made within the remaining 22 chapters.
Source: www.financialexpress.com”