This week, the Prime Minister has announced £1 billion of new UK-India trade, creating thousands of jobs that will boost our economy.
The package contains over £533m of new Indian investment into the UK, which is expected to create more than 6,000 jobs in vital and growing sectors such as health and technology. £200m of these deals will support low carbon growth. British businesses have also secured new export deals with India worth more than £446 million, which will drive UK growth and create more than 400 British jobs. Trade between the UK and India is already worth around £23bn a year, supporting more than half a million jobs.
Richard Fuller, Member of Parliament for NE Beds and Member of the Business Select Committee said:
Like every aspect of the UK-India relationship, the economic links between our countries make our people safer and stronger.
That is why the Prime Minister has committed to deepening the partnership between the UK and India at a summit with India Prime Minister Narendra Modi, including £1 billion of new UK-India trade and investment which will create 6,500 new jobs across the UK, and setting an ambitious target of doubling UK-India trade by 2030, putting us on the path to negotiating a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement.
This will help take the relationship between our two countries to new highs, delivering new jobs, opportunities and prosperity.
In a virtual meeting between Boris Johnson and Prime Minister Modi, the two leaders also agreed to a deeper relationship between the UK and India across trade, health, climate and defence. This includes agreeing an Enhanced Trade Partnership to unlock new opportunities for British businesses exporting to India and Indian businesses investing in the UK.
The Partnership agreed today will set the ambition to double the value of UK-India trade again by 2030 and declares a shared intent to begin work towards a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement. A future UK-India trade deal will support hundreds of thousands of jobs and boost the economies of both the UK and India by potentially lowering or removing current tariffs such as those of up to 150% on whisky and up to 125% on automotive, as well as other British products. It would also create huge benefits for British services – 4 out of 5 of India’s fastest-growing imports are for services like IP and telecommunications.
For more information on the 2030 Roadmap for India-UK future relations, please visit this page.