A new trade campaign to promote UK-India trade has been launched, hoping to use common ties over cricket, film and food to boost business and trade.
The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) revealed its ‘Alive with Opportunity’ campaign in Jaipur yesterday (24 August), during business and trade secretary Kemi Badenoch’s visit to India as part of the G-20 summit.
The campaign will reportedly cost £1.5m. DBT hopes to use it to double UK trade with India by 2030, with a series of targeted trade missions for UK firms in ‘high-growth sectors’, including e-sports, education and agri-tech.
G20
Badenoch said: “I’m delighted to be returning to India to support their G20 Presidency, further our trade talks and meet key business leaders. The UK and India have a thriving relationship and we both share an ambition to deepen our cultural and trading ties.
“India is the UK’s second biggest source of investment projects and I’m confident this new campaign will help boost interest in and demand for UK goods and services even further.”
As part of her visit, Badenoch will meet with Indian commerce minister Piyush Goyal and Tata chair Natarajan Chandrasekaran.
UK-India Business Council CEO, Richard McCallum, said:
“With total trade growing 34% in current prices in the year to March 2023 and India remaining the 2nd largest source of FDI projects in the UK, there is no doubt that the economic relationship between our two countries is flourishing.
Nearly there?
As reported previously by the IOE&IT Daily Update, the twelfth round of negotiations began this week amid optimism that a trade deal could finally be struck.
A potential trade agreement was first discussed in 2021.
At the time, prime minister Boris Johnson promised a deal by Diwali in the autumn of 2022, but this deadline was missed. Since then, both Badenoch and prime minister, Rishi Sunak, have said the deal remains a priority.
Negotiations between the UK and India have reportedly entered the “tricky” stage, according to the BBC, with insiders saying that they aren’t expecting a full agreement before Sunak visits India in September.