GarimaP
Thu, 07/08/2021 – 16:34
An Enhanced Trade Partnership Agreement was launched by India and the United Kingdom (UK) on May 4, 2021. This brings a bilateral commitment towards negotiation of a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and UK, to unlock the potential of India-UK trade relationship.
FTAs have the potential to deliver substantial economic benefits, by way of reducing cost of trade, bringing certainty in trading rules, creating a level playing field for businesses. This results in increased trade and investment. UK is an important trade and investment partner for India and the deepening of bilateral trade and investment relationship through an FTA could generate benefits to both economies. A UK-India FTA has the potential to promote trade and investment, secure access for Indian goods and services exporters to UK markets, make India more innovative, competitive and prosperous.
In preparation of formulating India’s negotiating strategy with the UK, the Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, has called for inputs from stakeholders in understanding stakeholders’ views and priority areas of enhancing trade relationship with UK, as well as current challenges in trading and investing in UK.
As NASSCOM, we are particularly interested in your views on:
• Areas that the Indian government should prioritise on trade talks with UK.
• Challenges or constraints being faced when attempting to trade or invest in UK.
• How will a comprehensive FTA impact your business? For example, would you engage in more export-import activity from UK, or increase investment in UK, or attract investment from UK, increase your output in India, or hire more workers in UK?
Your inputs will help us in submitting suggestions to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and further inform the Government’s approach for the upcoming negotiations on a comprehensive FTA with UK.
Kindly, share your inputs with us latest by July 16, 2021, by writing to garima@nasscom.in and nidhi@nasscom.in in the following format:
|
Priority Area |
For example, services (market access issues, national treatment issues), intellectual property, digital economy and e-commerce |
|
Specific Sector, if any |
For example, services sector, digital trade sector |
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Suggestion |
Suggestions on what the Indian Government should achieve through and FTA with UK – for example, key asks for sectors of services liberalisation, transfer of data, totalisation agreements etc. |
|
Existing position |
Current position and challenges faced due to the current position on the suggested topics |
|
Concerns |
Any protections from the domestic industry’s perspective that needs to be retained |
|
Justification |
Reasons for abovementioned suggestions or concerns, and the potential positive impact on trade and investment with UK |
|
Relevant data |
Relevant data to support your suggestion/concern. For example: Existing or projected import/export data, data on existing/future jobs etc. |
|
Any other details |
Any other relevant details. |
