New Delhi, March 31: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is scheduled to visit London next week, from April 8-10, where she will discuss issues related to bilateral trade and investment, and hold talks under the India-United Kingdom Economic and Financial Dialogue.

Sitharaman is likely to hold a meeting with her counterpart, UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves. The India-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue is an important bilateral institutional mechanism to enhance trade and Investment between the two countries.

A senior official said issues related to the trade agreement and the bilateral investment treaty may also come up for discussions between the two leaders.

He said bilateral cooperation on economic and commerce matters is guided by institutionalised dialogues to enhance trade and Investment between the two countries. Both sides meet regularly to review the progress of bilateral trade and investment under the aegis of these mechanisms which includes the Economic and Financial Dialogue (EDF).

Minister of Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal had announced on February 24 that India and the UK have decided to restart negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) after a meeting in Delhi with his UK counterpart Jonathan Reynolds.

"All options are on the table. We are in active negotiations on three different aspects - the FTA, the Bilateral Investment Treaty, and a Double Contribution Convention Agreement. And all three are in parallel and conjoined with each other," he said.

However, Goyal made it clear that India would not rush into a trade agreement in haste. “We will have speed but not haste," he quipped when asked whether a deadline had been fixed to sign the deal.

There are 26 chapters in the agreement, which include goods, services, investments, and intellectual property rights. While the UK is seeking a lowering of tariffs on goods such as electric vehicles and Scotch whisky, India wants easier visa rules for its professionals in the services sector to enter the UK.

The India-UK EFD is a platform established to strengthen the financial and economic relationship between the two countries, focusing on areas like sustainable development, financial reforms, and regulatory frameworks, with the goal of boosting bilateral trade and investment.

Last year in December the third meeting of India-UK Financial Markets Dialogue was hosted by the Finance Ministry in GIFT City, Gujarat.

Participants from India and UK touched upon reforms in respective financial services sectors including capital markets, insurance & reinsurance, pensions, FinTech, and sustainable finance.

India-UK bilateral trade (both goods and services) stood at 36.3 billion pounds during the FY 2022-23 (April 2022 - March 2023), an increase of 34.2 per cent or 9.2 billion pounds from 2021-22. Out of the above, India’s total imports from the UK amounted to 14.7 billion pounds, and India’s total exports to the UK amounted to 21.6 billion pounds. India was the UK’s 12th largest trading partner in this period, accounting for 2.1 per cent of the UK’s total trade.

India invested in 108 projects and created 7,533 new jobs in the UK to retain the position of second-largest source of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) after the US, according to the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) inward investment statistics for 2023-2024.

The UK is the 6th largest inward investor in India after Mauritius, Singapore, the USA, the Netherlands, and Japan, with a cumulative equity investment of $35 billion (April 2000-March 2024), accounting for around 5.17 per cent of all foreign direct investment into India. (IANS)

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