Liz Truss visits to India and held digital talks with Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal final yr in May.
London:
Newly-elected Conservative Party chief and Prime Minister in ready Liz Truss is among the many senior British politicians identified for championing deeper India-UK strategic and financial ties, describing them as a “sweet spot” of world commerce dynamics.
After all, it was Truss as International Trade Secretary who signed off on the India-UK Enhanced Trade Partnership (ETP) for the Boris Johnson led authorities in May final yr, which marked the start line of the continued free commerce settlement (FTA) negotiations.
The 47-year-old senior Cabinet minister made visits to India and held digital talks with Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, throughout which she described the nation as a “big, major opportunity”.
“I see the UK and India in a sweet spot of the trade dynamics that are building up,” stated Truss quickly after signing the ETP.
“We are looking at a comprehensive trade agreement that covers everything, from financial services to legal services to digital and data, as well as goods and agriculture. We think there is strong possibility for us to get an early agreement, where we lower tariffs on both sides and start to see more goods flowing between our two countries,” she stated.
On her promotion as Foreign Secretary, Truss handed over the baton on the Department for International Trade (DIT) to Anne Marie-Trevelyan, who’s broadly anticipated to proceed in her position as International Trade Secretary and take ahead the UK-India FTA talks.
More lately on the marketing campaign path in her contest with former chancellor Rishi Sunak to be elected Tory chief, Truss reaffirmed that she stays “very, very committed” to strengthen bilateral ties at a hustings occasion of the celebration’s Conservative Friends of India (CFIN) diaspora group.
She additionally dedicated herself to getting the India-UK FTA accomplished, ideally by Diwali – the deadline set by predecessor Boris Johnson – however “definitely by the end of the year”.
She has repeatedly flagged enhanced defence and safety cooperation with the Indo-Pacific area to be able to meet her “network of liberty” objectives as a counter-balance to the aggression of Russia and China.
In a key international coverage speech earlier this yr, she declared: “Russia and China are working together more and more, as they strive to set the standards in technologies like artificial intelligence, assert their dominance over the Western Pacific through joint military exercises and in space through closer ties.
“China and Russia have noticed an ideological vacuum and so they’re speeding to fill it. They are emboldened in a means we’ve not seen for the reason that Cold War. As freedom-loving democracies we should rise as much as face down these threats. As properly as NATO we’re working with companions like Australia, India, Japan, Indonesia and Israel to construct a worldwide community of liberty,” according to Truss.
As Foreign Secretary, she has been at the forefront of the UK’s response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, imposing tough sanctions and cracking down on Russian assets in the UK.
It is this crisis that marks what has been described as one of the worst in-trays that any new British Prime Minister has faced, given the spiralling energy costs that have triggered a cost-of-living crisis in the UK largely as a result of the ongoing conflict in Europe.
“Within one week I’ll be certain that there may be an announcement on how we’re going to cope with the difficulty of power payments, and of long-term provide, to place this nation on the fitting footing for winter,” she said in a recent interview.
Some tough measures are expected within days, with analysts expecting her to adopt some of rival Rishi Sunak’s plans of help targeted at the most vulnerable households. However, it is her pledge to reverse the former Chancellor’s tax hike that would make it unlikely for the two finalists to work together in a new Cabinet.
While Sunak maintained that tax cuts are not the answer to get a grip on the country’s soaring inflation, Truss stood firm on her low tax pledge throughout the campaign – a move that clearly paid off with the historically low tax favouring Conservative Party base.
While UK-born Sunak relied on his personal immigrant story and Indian heritage in a slick campaign run, Truss repeatedly admitted that she may not be the slickest of candidates but had a clear vision of how to “get the job accomplished”. Ironically, both candidates harked back to Tory grandee Margaret Thatcher as their inspiration. However, while Sunak belonged firmly to one end of the party wing as a Brexiteer, Truss was someone who had voted for the UK to remain in the European Union (EU). She was also often pulled up about her membership and campaign for the Liberal Democrats as a young Oxford University student.
“The motive I’m a Conservative is that I noticed children at my college being let down in Leeds,” she stated throughout a tv debate early on within the marketing campaign, when confronted together with her political flip-flop.
But no matter her background, the MP for South West Norfolk managed to win over the Tory membership base, which had her as a transparent frontrunner since she was elected as a finalist by her celebration colleagues.
Born in Oxford to a maths professor father and nurse trainer mom, Truss grew up and lived in several elements of the UK, together with Paisley in Scotland and Leeds, Kidderminster and London in England – one thing she capitalised on in the course of the marketing campaign as her dedication to all elements of the nation if elected chief.
Truss is married to accountant Hugh O’Leary with two teenage daughters.
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