FTA ‘possible' before India elections, says UK trade minister Kemi Badenoch
UK Secretary of State for Business and Trade Kemi Badenoch has said.
The minister in charge of signing off on the free trade agreement (FTA), now in its 14th round of negotiations, pointed to India's «protectionist economy» in comparison with the UK's liberalised regime as one of the factors behind the long-drawn discussions.
Badenoch, who was speaking during a Global Trade conference at the think tank Chatham House on Thursday, stressed that she wanted to ensure a “commercially meaningful” pact as opposed to just a pre-election picture opportunity.
“India is still very protectionist where we are very, very liberalised,” claimed Badenoch.
“I am not interested in just taking a picture and moving on. It has to be something that is commercially meaningful. People need to be able to say ‘ah now I can do this', like we had with our Australia agreement or with Japan for example,” she said, referring to FTAs with the two major economies.
On the timeline for getting to the finishing line with the talks with India, she added: “We can actually sign an agreement before the Indian election. I suspect that that is not necessarily going to be the case because I don't want to use any election as a deadline.
“It is possible that that will be done but I am very resistant to deadlines being set on trade negotiations because it runs down the clock. It is very possible that we can sign but I am not using it as a deadline for the work that I am carrying out basically.”
India and the UK have been negotiating an FTA since January
