India, UK working to iron out issues on IPRs

India and the UK are working to iron out differences on issues like intellectual property rights (IPRs) and rules of origin under the free trade agreement being negotiated by the two countries, a top government official said on Friday. The 11th round of talks is underway in the UK for the agreement. Negotiations for the trade agreement started in January 2021. Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said that out of 26 chapters in the agreement, 14 have been closed. In five chapters there are certain important contentious issues pertaining to environment, labour, and digital trade. This agreement is the ”most complex” one which will be going to be signed by India, he told reporters here. ”UK will be the first with which we are going to have a comprehensive FTA which we have not signed with any other developed country as such,” he added. There are some differences with respect to IPR and rules of origin (ROO). ”In services also, there are few issues…So we are working on those issues. Hopefully, we will be able to close it and move,” he added. The ‘rules of origin’ provision prescribes minimal processing that should happen in the FTA country so that the final manufactured product may be called originating goods in that country. Under this provision, a country that has inked an FTA with India cannot dump goods from some third country in the Indian market by just putting a label on it. It has to undertake a prescribed value addition in that product to export to India. Rules of origin norms help contain dumping of goods.