Keir Starmer eyes India trip to sign trade deal

LONDON — Keir Starmer plans to formally sign the U.K.-India trade deal with Narendra Modi on a visit to India this summer.

Starmer has touted the deal as part of his success on the international stage since it was agreed in early May after three years of talks. At the G20 summit late last year, Britain’s leader accepted an invitation from Modi to visit India.

Britain’s PM is planning to travel to New Delhi this summer to finalize the pact, two people close to the planning process told POLITICO.

Starmer hailed a “new era for trade and the economy” as a result of the deal, while Modi said it would “catalyze trade, investment, growth, job creation, and innovation in both our economies.”

Britain’s Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds is meeting Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal Tuesday to discuss implementing the pact and pushing forward with talks on the as-yet-unfinished investment treaty that goes with it.

The two are meeting in Paris on the sidelines of the OECD trade ministers meeting.

India’s parliament is “very fond” of the deal, said Indian MP Ravi Shankar Prasad.

“It shows the depth of our relationship,” Prasad, who is leading a delegation of parliamentarians visiting the U.K. this week, told reporters at the Indian High Commission in London Tuesday.

The pact is the most valuable trade deal the U.K. has struck since leaving the EU, and could increase the U.K.’s GDP by £4.8 billion by 2040, according to British estimates.

The deal aims to cut through high tariffs on U.K. goods in India with 85 percent becoming tariff-free within a decade. The effect will be equivalent to slashing £1 billion in tariffs after 10 years. 

Measures include immediately slashing India’s 150 percent tariff on Scotch whisky in half before it is cut to 40 percent after ten years. Duties on the auto sector will drop from 100 percent to 10 percent with quotas on both sides for the sensitive sector.

Indian duties will also be lowered on cosmetics, aerospace, medical devices, electrical machinery and agriculture and food. Britain will lower tariffs on textiles, footwear, frozen prawns and other food products.

While U.K. negotiators resisted granting more visas for Indian students studying in the U.K., the Indian side has talked up an "“unprecedented” win on its workers being exempt from employee tax contributions in Britain — triggering some pushback from U.K. opposition parties.

The official text of the agreement has not yet been published and will only be delivered to parliaments in both countries once Starmer and Modi sign the pact.

Indian officials have said the deal is currently undergoing legal scrubbing so that it can be signed within three months of its agreement, which took place on May 6.

Downing Street declined to comment.