New Delhi, Nov 8 (KNN) According to an analysis by the Commonwealth Secretariat, if India and UK negotiate and successfully conclude a FTA the bilateral foreign trade between the two countries will rise by 26%, said Dr Rashmi Banga, Head, Trade Competitiveness, Commonwealth Secretariat, London.

She said this while addressing at a seminar on Brexit: Prospects of India – UK FTA organized in the national capital today. The Seminar was jointly organized by the Trade Competitiveness Section, Commonwealth Secretariat and the Centre for WTO Studies, IIFT in partnership with FICCI and FISME.

Deliberating on the implications of Brexit, Dr Banga said there are opportunities as well as challenges post Brexit.

“Challenges for countries who have preferential access to EU market and opportunities for countries who are still negotiating FTAs with EU because now countries can expect sweetened deals both from UK and EU.

India-EU FTA as we all know has not yet been concluded as there are many sticky points. We can now look forward to Commerce Secretary’s inaugural address and see what India can now negotiate in terms of opportunities with EU as well as with UK in case a FTA is negotiated,” she highlighted.

Stressing that bilateral trade between India and UK will increase potentially if an FTA is negotiated between the two countries, Dr Banga pointed that, “Surprisingly, what we find is that India’s imports from UK will be higher than India’s exports to UK. While India’s imports will rise from USD 5.2 billion to USD 7.8 billion, almost 50 % increase, India’s exports to UK will increase from USD 9.1 billion to USD 10.2 billion, a 12 % rise.”

Dr Banga pointed that this is because India’s import tariffs are higher in many products compared to UK.

“So any tariff liberalization will lead to higher market access in a country which has higher tariffs,” she said.

The Commonwealth Secretariat has also identified 13 new products which India can export to UK. It has estimated a market access of around USD 2 billion for these 13 products which have been identified.

“There is a huge potential market for these identified products from India as UK imports these products from rest of the countries and not India,” she said.

But the real market lies in services; she said adding that UK is the second largest exporter of services.

But UK also imports USD 200 billion of services and these services are imported from countries like EU, China, Thailand, and Malaysia. So these are the big service markets which India now have an opportunity post Brexit which India can now explore, she said.