 "The historic India-UK trade deal in 10 numbers")
The newly concluded India-UK Free Trade Agreement is a key milestone in bilateral economic relations and is being hailed as the United Kingdom’s most significant trade pact since Brexit. Signed after years of negotiations, the deal aims to deepen ties between the world’s fifth and sixth largest economies, streamline tariffs, and unlock billions in trade potential.
From whisky to automobiles and digital services to social security, the agreement touches a broad range of sectors — while also making history in several ways.
Here are ten key numbers that define this landmark trade deal:
1: India-UK free trade agreement is UK’s biggest trade deal since Brexit
3: India and UK reached the landmark agreement after three years of talks starting 2022.
5: Since 2014, India has signed five such agreements with Mauritius, the UAE, Australia, EFTA and the UK.
5+6: The agreement between India and Britain is expected to boost bilateral trade between the world’s fifth and sixth largest economies by 25.5 billion pounds a year from 2040, Britain said.
10 per cent: India will also cut automotive tariffs to 10 per cent under a quota from over 100% currently.
11:
India was Britain’s 11th largest trading partner in 2024. Trade between the two countries totalled 42.6 billion pounds in that year.
14: As many as 14 rounds of negotiations had taken place between India and the UK for the FTA.
16: This is India’s 16th free trade agreement. India has inked trade deals with Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Japan, Australia, UAE, Mauritius, the 10-nation bloc ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), and four European nations’ bloc EFTA (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland). In addition, India is negotiating trade agreements at present with a number of its trading partners. The negotiations are underway with the US, Oman, the European Union (EU), Peru, and Israel. Talks with Canada for a similar pact were put on hold due to certain political issues.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts75 per cent: India will bring down whisky and gin tariffs from 150% to 75%, and further to 40% by the tenth year of the deal making the beverage cheaper in the world’s largest whisky market.
0: The deal does not include any change in immigration policy, including towards Indian students studying in the UK, the British government said.
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