UK Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch. Credit: AFP Photo
London: International Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch said that UK has no plan to issue more student visas for India as it is not a part of ‘Free Trade Agreement’ (FTA).
In an interview with the U.K.’s The Times, Badenoch, who was in India last month for the sixth round of discussion on the India-U.K. FTA, said that the FTA is not a deal negotiating free movement with India.
“We left the European Union because, we didn’t believe in free movement,” and therefore the FTA is not a deal to negotiate some kind of free movement with India,” she said.
Talking about FTA signed with India and Australia, she said that the FTA both the countries cannot be offered the same kind of mobility due to differences in sizes of population. “We need to make sure that every trade deal signed with any country is specific considering population differences,” she was quoted as saying.
Badenoch in her interview with The Times also clarified that while UK will not grant Indians the same type of deal as it has signed with Australia. She also said that UK, however, prepared to make concessions on issues such as business mobility.
The UK-Australia FTA allows an unlimited number of under-35s in Australia to live and work in the UK for three years and vice-versa. The seventh round of official-level negotiations is expected to commence this year.
UK is one of the top destinations for Indian students. The British High Commission last year revealed that it issued 215 per cent more visas in 2022 compared to 2019.
India and the UK trade mostly in services which accounts for about 70 per cent of the overall trade. Both countries also aim to increase their bilateral trade to USD 100 billion by the end of this decade.
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