As India and the U.K. continue to negotiate a trade agreement — which was initially supposed to be ready by Deepavali of 2022 — External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar has said that he hoped the two countries will be able to find a mutually beneficial “landing point” for the deal.
“...And that [the Free Trade Agreement or FTA] is today very much the focus of what the Indian and British systems are negotiating, and where we hope that we will find a landing point which will work for both of us,” Dr. Jaishankar told an audience at a Deepavali diaspora reception on Monday evening in London, where the EAM is on an official visit.
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Dr. Jaishankar said that the U.K. and India were trying to reframe their relationship and highlighted the ‘Agenda 2030 ‘. A ‘Roadmap to 2023’ was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson in May 2021 that seeks to elevate the partnership across multiple-domains, including connectivity, defence, health, trade, and climate action.
Dr. Jaishankar said Indian and British interests “converge very clearly” across a range of issues, and the more the two countries work with each other, they find “greater comfort” in doing so. He gave credit to the U.K. (as he has done with the U.S.) for helping India conduct a successful G-20 Summit in September this year. He also cited the example of India and the U.K. working together on vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
India’s High Commissioner to the U.K. Vikram Doraiswami, and Tariq Ahmad, who is the Minister of State at the U.K. Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), were also present at Monday’s gathering.
