Business visas part of India-UK FTA talks but not immigration

UK and India have been negotiating an FTA since January 2022 under the previous Conservative-led government.

Talks on a proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and the United Kingdom, which resumed February 24 after almost a year, will include New Delhi's key demand for greater business mobility in Britain, commerce minister Piyush Goyal has said.

While business visas will be a part of discussions, immigration is not on the agenda, Goyal said during a joint press briefing in New Delhi with visiting UK's secretary of state for business and trade Jonathan Reynolds.

"Lot of Indian business are invested in UK, while UK businesses also have a presence in India. So, for all of those business visas will be required and they will be linked to investments, services that we plan to open up via the proposed FTA," Goyal said.

Reynolds agreed and said, "We deal with immigration separate to our FTA talks while business mobility is a separate issue altogether... as a service-based economy, business mobility is an ask from the UK in trade negotiations."

If India and UK want to expand trade and investment, "we need to be faster and more liberal in our issuance of visas", Goyal said.

New Delhi has been seeking short-term visas for its service industry workers and students, hoping to benefit from the proposed FTA.

“In several nations, Indian students go for education be it the US, Australia, the UK or Canada. And, almost all countries, to incentivise education, give a certain period of time for students to work but that's a short-term business work visa, it has nothing to do with immigration as such,” Goyal said.

The UK and India have been negotiating an FTA since January 2022. There are 26 chapters in the agreement, which include goods, services, investments and intellectual property rights.

On February 24, India and UK decided to restart negotiations for the FTA almost a year after talks stalled in May 2024 ahead of UK's general elections.

Before talks were paused, India was negotiating a few unresolved issues with the previous Conservative-led British government, including rules of origin, London’s demand for tariff concessions on electric vehicles and norms about services. So far, 13 rounds of talks have been conducted.