The bilateral trade between the United Kingdom and India fell down to 15.5 billion in the year 2019 to 2020 and was 16.9 billion the previous fiscal year. With the European Union and UK striking deal with each other, it is now the best time for India to aggressively pursue FTS or free trade agreements in a separate manner with both of these regions. Although it could be that the Indian goods do not have much to gain from pursuing these free trade negotiations, it is far too early to assess the pros and cons.
How Will The Deal Between The UK and European Union Affect India :
It might be that India doesn’t gain much from the export of its products but it will lead to the exploration of many new opportunities in service sectors of IT, architecture, development, engineering, or research, in the markets of the countries in the European Union and the United Kingdom because the EU-UK pact does not include services.
Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) Director General Ajay Sahai said in a statement, “There is not much gain for Indian goods, but we can gain in the services sector in both the UK and Europian Union markets. We will gain more in the UK market as we are an English speaking country.”
He also further stated that there is not any special clause that states that India will gain custom tax benefits from the export of domestic goods and hence, it can be said that the deal is not beneficial in terms of trade but in terms of exploration of market and services sector.
“Now we should push the FTA negotiations with both the EU [european union] and the UK. Indian competitors like Vietnam have greater duty advantage in sectors like apparel and marine goods,” Sahai said.
“We have requested the government to sign an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) regarding a deadline to conclude FTA talks with Britain during the visit of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson next month in India,” Saraf said. Hence, the trade pact between the European Union and the United Kingdom is a very bright step for India.
“But India needs to plan accordingly,” Sahai said in his last few statements. We can say that there are many things planned for India.
