24th JULY 2025 ENGLISH TNPSC CURRENT AFFAIRS PDF TNPSC SHOUTERS
India-UK Free Trade Agreement Signed
- The India-UK Free Trade Agreement was signed on Thursday (July 24). Prime Minister Narendra Modi left for a 4-day official visit to the UK and the Maldives on Wednesday.
- This is Prime Minister Modi’s first visit to the UK after Keir Stormer became the Prime Minister of the UK.
- Prime Minister Modi held extensive talks with British Prime Minister Keir Stormer on bilateral relations, regional and global issues.
- Thereafter, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and UK Trade Minister Jonathan Reynolds signed the landmark bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in the presence of the two Prime Ministers.
- After negotiations in London, the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was finalized on May 6. Under it, bilateral trade is set to double to a high of $120 billion by 2030.
- The free trade agreement will reduce import duties on key Indian exports to the UK, such as leather, footwear and textiles, as well as on key British exports to India, such as whisky, gin, soft drinks, cosmetics and other agricultural products.
- India will significantly reduce import duties on certain types of cars manufactured in the UK from 100 percent to 10 percent.
- Electronic, paperless trade will also be implemented to simplify trade on both sides.
- Prices of Indian textiles are expected to fall in the UK. The UK government is set to remove the 8-12 percent import duty on Indian textiles, which will benefit exporters in Tiruppur, Surat and Ludhiana.
- Similarly, the prices of gold, diamonds and other jewellery will now come down in the UK.
- As the 150 percent duty on Scotch whisky in India has been reduced to 30 percent, their prices will come down here.
- The duty on automobile spare parts made in India is being reduced in the UK.
- This will benefit areas such as Chennai, Pune and Gurugram, which have a large number of industrial companies.
- Visa procedures for Indians have also been simplified, so engineers, chartered accountants and other workers from here will no longer have difficulty in going to the UK.
- It has also been reported that generic medicines made in India will be approved in the UK within a short time.
- Basmati rice, tea and aromatic spices will now be available at lower prices in the UK. The tax relief for these will benefit agricultural exporters from Kerala, Assam, Gujarat and West Bengal.
- Taxes on chemical products and plastic products will be reduced. Exporters from Gujarat and Maharashtra will benefit the most.
- It is also noteworthy that Britain is planning to invest heavily in solar projects, hydrogen and electric vehicles in India.
- Indian companies have benefited greatly since there is no import duty on many electronic devices made in India, including smartphones, optical fiber cables and inverters. Moreover, this agreement includes IT and other IT-related work, so those sectors will also benefit.
- Importantly, British companies have now been given wider access to Indian government tenders.
