A free-trade deal with India is unlikely to be ready to sign for when Rishi Sunak visits the country in September, but the trade secretary says "it's about the deal, not the date" and that "we are now in the final stages" for "delivering something mutually beneficial" to both countries. Talks have begun for the 12th round of trade negotiations, with Kemi Badenoch visiting India for a meeting of G20 ministers this week. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 So one of the things that I've always said that it's about the deal, not the day.
00:04 The deadline that was set was not by our current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, who, as you know,
00:10 is very serious about getting a deal done.
00:12 Now what I can't do is go into the details of all of the negotiations.
00:17 These are things that the chief negotiators know the detail of.
00:20 We don't want to interfere with the work that they're doing.
00:23 But what I will say is that with any negotiation, the hardest bits tend to come at the end.
00:29 We have closed many chapters.
00:30 We've done many of perhaps the more simpler tasks.
00:34 We've come to accommodations in several areas.
00:37 And we are now in the final stages.
00:39 I can't give a deadline.
00:41 Anything can happen.
00:42 So I don't like to raise people's expectations.
00:45 But what I can say is that I'm very optimistic and I'm working closely with my counterpart,
00:50 Minister Piyush Goyal, to make sure we can deliver something that both our countries
00:54 will find mutually beneficial.
00:56 Well these are things that happen at all multilateral fora.
01:00 It is very difficult to get many countries to agree on communique.
01:07 And from our perspective in the UK, what we are really emphasizing, especially as today
01:12 is the Ukrainian Day of Independence, just how significant that war in Russia, Ukraine,
01:18 has had an impact on UK trade, on European trade, on global trade.
01:25 So given who the members of the G20 are, of course it's going to be difficult.
01:29 But I think that what you would have heard in those meetings is many of the countries
01:34 speaking, singing from the same hymn sheet and giving the same message about how we feel
01:39 about what is happening in Ukraine, Russia.
01:41 And that's really what is important.
01:42 It is important that people hear what we have to say.
01:46 Hopefully we will be able to say something that is joint, but we may not.
01:49 And if that is the case, I think the overall message will still be quite clear.
01:52 Visas and visa liberalizations don't come within free trade agreements.
01:58 It's an immigration issue which is dealt with by our Home Office and we have a points-based
02:03 system.
02:04 What I look at is business, for which business mobility comes into the trade framework.
02:09 And that's something, again, as I said, I can't go into the detail, but like with bilateral
02:15 investment treaties, like with business mobility, these are things which we are discussing,
02:20 we are actively discussing to find an accommodation that works for both of the two countries.
02:25 So I'm optimistic about that.