Skip to main content

Deadline with India pushed back.

 

India trade agreement

Trade secretary Kemi Badenoch has refused to commit to a deadline to finalise a much-hyped trade agreement with India, but said looming elections there and in the UK were increasing pressure to secure a deal. The two countries missed an October deadline agreed by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and Boris Johnson, then UK premier, to secure an agreement by the Hindu festival of Diwali, following months of political turmoil in the UK. The Brexit promise of a trade deal with the US has failed to materialise, while Johnson’s claim that an Indian agreement would be secured this autumn has also turned out to be wishful thinking. Badenoch’s caution follows a backlash over the UK-Australia trade deal signed last year, with some Conservative MPs warning that the government had made too many concessions to Australia.


Badenoch travelled to New Delhi this week for the first face-to-face trade talks since July. India, one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, which has now overtaken the UK in size, presents a large opportunity as Modi’s government is trying to reduce its reliance on China. But a trade agreement with Delhi has proved controversial among some pro-Brexit Conservative MPs, with Suella Braverman, the home secretary, in October provoking anger in India for expressing «reservations» because the deal could increase immigration. As part of the agreement, India is seeking greater access to business visas for professionals to work in the UK.

Badenoch said that both sides had made progress on India’s demand for more visas, but that negotiations had arrived at their most challenging juncture.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Alexa14 December 2022 at 17:09

    Reducing your reliance to countries like China or Russia is a good thing and I'm glad India is thinking in that direction. And yes, the UK needs to be careful and negotiate better than they did with Australia.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom14 December 2022 at 17:39

      One shouldn’t be relying on any one country, especially the likes of Russia or China. It’s better to have 10 partners than just 1. And India is in a position where it can get better deals with just about anyone.

      Delete
  2. Anonymous14 December 2022 at 19:33

    While an increase in immigration is something to watch out for, there are countless examples of well-prepared, hard-working Indians that are a great addition to the UK workforce so Suella Braverman should also take this into account.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Cloud Bookkeeping

HS2 cost cuts new routes and add delays.

 Trans­port depart­ment offi­cials have begun work on «Project Sil­ver­light» sug­gest­ing the high­speed rail scheme might face four addi­tional years of delay. The planned High Speed 2 rail line faces fur­ther delays of up to four years and more cuts to the project under plans being drawn up by min­is­ters to rein in its bal­loon­ing costs. The extra delays to the coun­try’s biggest infra­struc­ture project would mean that it would not be com­pleted until as late as 2045 — 12 years after ori­gin­ally planned. «This is a func­tion of infla­tion; we are hav­ing to find huge sav­ings because the cost of everything the depart­ment is already doing will have become so much more expens­ive by then,» said one gov­ern­ment offi­cial. In Octo­ber, the FT repor­ted that the Treas­ury had asked HS2’s man­age­ment team to identify poten­tial cuts or «scope reduc­tions» to the high-speed line. Trans­port depart­ment offi­cials have sub­sequently begun work on Project Sil­ver­light aimed at fi...
4 comments
Read more

Small business will be excluded from fraud law.

  Min­is­ters are plan­ning to exclude small busi­nesses from anti-fraud legis­la­tion by nar­row­ing the scope of a crim­inal offence tar­get­ing com­pan­ies that fail to pre­vent eco­nomic crimes. MPs and anti-cor­rup­tion cam­paign­ers had hoped the gov­ern­ment would seek to amend the eco­nomic crime and cor­por­ate trans­par­ency bill to ensure the new offence covered all com­pan­ies. The plans to limit the scope of the amend­ments will also dis­ap­point those who had hoped the legis­la­tion would remove key hurdles to the pro­sec­u­tion of white-col­lar crime. A new «fail­ure to pre­vent» offence for fraud would bring it in line with exist­ing sim­ilar cor­por­ate offences for bribery and tax eva­sion. At present, pro­sec­utors need only prove that organ­isa­tions lacked «reas­on­able» or «adequate» con­trols to pur­sue the offence in bribery and tax eva­sion cases. «It would be much more sens­ible for the gov­ern­ment to provide strong guid­ance for SMEs on what these pro­ce...
3 comments
Read more

Doubt on CS's collateral.

  Credit Suisse provided an emergency $140mn loan to Greensill Capital based partly on invoices to companies that deny ever doing the business stated on the documents. The Swiss bank provided the loan in October 2020, less than five months before the collapse of Greensill, a supply chain finance firm that counted former British prime minister David Cameron as a senior adviser. Invoices issued by metals magnate Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty Commodities and sold to Greensill formed part of the collateral for the loan, according to documents seen by the Financial Times and people familiar with the transaction. Yet several of the parties named on the invoices have told the FT they did no business with Liberty. GFG has consistently denied any wrongdoing. Credit Suisse’s loan had a clause dictating that the collateral value had to be equal to or greater than the $140mn borrowed. The terms of the debt agreement only allowed invoices on Green-sill’s balance sheet to count towards this tally if t...
2 comments
Read more