The India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) will come into force from Wednesday. Commerce Secretary Rajesh Aggarwal has described it as the ‘gold standard’ and one of the most ambitious free trade agreements in the country. This will reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers.
New Delhi [भारत]July 14 (ANI): Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agarwal on Tuesday said the India-United Kingdom Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) will come into force from Wednesday. This is a historic moment in India’s trade history and will mark the beginning of one of the country’s most ambitious free trade agreements.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi ahead of the implementation of the agreement, Agarwal said the India-UK CETA and the Double Contribution Convention (DCC) will come into effect from July 15. He described the agreement as a “gold standard” and a “first of its kind” trade agreement for India. He said, “The entry into force of the India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the Double Contribution Convention on July 15, 2026 is a historic moment in India’s trade history. It is one of the first FTAs of its kind, establishing a forward-looking economic framework between two major economies of the world.”
The Commerce Secretary said that this agreement is one of India’s most ambitious and aspirational FTAs due to its broad sectoral coverage and deep reduction in both tariff and non-tariff barriers. According to Aggarwal, the agreement comprises 30 chapters, which go beyond traditional tariff liberalization to also cover areas such as digital trade, government procurement, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), innovation, labour, environment and gender equality.
He said the agreement addresses both tariff and non-tariff barriers through measures such as sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) and technical barriers to trade (TBT), ensuring that these do not become unfair trade restrictions for businesses in the future. Also, he said the agreement protects India’s sensitive sectors, including dairy, grains, pulses, vegetables, gold and jewellery, smartphones and critical polymers.
Double Contribution Convention ‘Game Changer’
Describing the Double Contribution Convention as a “game changer” for India’s services sector, Aggarwal said Indian workers and their employers currently contribute about 25 per cent of salaries into the UK National Insurance system, but they do not get the benefits of it, making these contributions a kind of sunk cost. Under the DCC, Indian professionals and their employers who have worked in the UK for five years will be exempted from making social security contributions in the UK. Instead, they will continue to contribute to India’s social security system. The agreement is expected to benefit over 75,000 Indian workers and over 900 employers, while improving the competitiveness of India’s services sector by eliminating double social security contributions.
Ease of doing business and benefits to other sectors
Aggarwal also highlighted several trade facilitation measures under the agreement, including the introduction of self-certification of rules of origin. He said this would make the agreement more business-friendly and reduce the compliance burden for businesses on both sides.
Describing the agreement as inclusive, he said Indian farmers will get better access to the UK’s $90 billion agricultural market, while seafood exports from India will be completely exempted from duty, benefiting fishermen and the marine products sector. He said labour-intensive sectors will also benefit as import duties of up to 12 per cent will be reduced to zero, creating new employment opportunities. Women entrepreneurs, startups, MSMEs and young professionals are also expected to gain access to global value chains and better mobility opportunities.
“Overall, it is a win-win deal for both parties, with India taking a huge leap forward in terms of the extent of market liberalization and the breadth of policy areas covered under the agreement,” Agarwal said.
agreement timeline
After fourteen intensive rounds of negotiations, CETA was agreed upon on May 6, 2025. The agreement was officially signed on July 24, 2025 in London by India’s Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, and UK Secretary of State for Trade and Business, Jonathan Reynolds, in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. To complete this framework, the companion Double Contribution Convention (DCC) was subsequently signed on February 10, 2026. (ANI)
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