UK announces £1 billion in new commercial deals with India

New Delhi: Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal and UK secretary of state for business & trade Jonathan Reynolds co-chaired the Joint Economic and Trade Committee meeting (JETCO) on Monday, the first after the implementation of the India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). The meeting coincided with Britain announcing more than £1 billion in new commercial deals.

The two sides also agreed to exchange data annually on the use of CETA, which came into effect on July 15. The data will cover businesses' claims for lower tariffs and feedback on implementation, beginning a year after the pact comes into force. "Communities across the UK and India are set to benefit from over £1 billion in new deals.

The announcement comes as a major UK delegation arrives in India with a mission to maximise business benefit from the CETA," the British High Commission in India said in a statement. Focus sectors include aviation services, artificial intelligence, healthcare, advanced communications and engineering.


More than 100 businesses from various sectors arrived in India as part of the UK trade mission, alongside the UK business secretary, Scotland secretary, environment, food and rural affairs secretary, and seven mayors from northern England. Deals announced on Monday include a £50 million investment from Meta for Data Technologies to fund AI research in the UK. Menzies Aviation, a leading UK aviation services company, is seeking to generate more than £600 million in revenue through an expanded presence in India.

At a separate event, Goyal said the UK has opened 99.99% of their market. "Except rice, poultry and chicken, possibly eggs, part of poultry, other than that, everything is open in UK for us at zero duty," he said. He said all European carmakers would prefer to manufacture in India, as producing vehicles there would be uncompetitive due to the region's regulations. "All the European manufacturers will come to India...Tatas had so much trouble after they bought Jaguar. Tata Motors itself was going to collapse, and then they put in a lot of re-engineering and shifted some models to India and what not, and finally they are able to make money after years," he said.

Referring to the UK seeking market access for their cars in the trade deal with India, Goyal said: "I said I will accept the very expensive cars, £80,000 and above, which we don't make in India. And what is the number? 100, 200, 500. And the moment it reaches a reasonable scale, then I will have to make it in India because it is unviable to import a finished plant". "Mercedes, BMW...why do they bring a finished plant from there to test the market? If the model works, then I want to manufacture it in India. If you recall, at one point of time, we did have a BMW plant. Once they got a little scale, they set up a plant."

Goyal called on businesses to capitalise on the opportunities created by the pact to achieve the shared target of doubling bilateral trade by 2030, adding that "it is a piece of paper until you make the best of it". "It is time to convert the CETA from an acronym to an instruction manual... CETA is the floor, not the ceiling," Goyal said at the JETCO meet.

"Trade agreements cannot simply be legal texts. They have to live in the real world," Reynolds said, stressing the need to turn commitments under the deal into commercial outcomes. To accelerate implementation, Goyal proposed continuous engagement through sectoral meetings every 15 days, business delegations and greater participation in exhibitions as partner countries. "Our shared ambition is to double bilateral trade by 2030, that is barely 4.5 years away," Goyal said.