London: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will visit India at the end of April in what will be his first major international trip after Britain’s exit from the European Union as part of efforts to boost UK opportunities in the region, his office said on Monday.
United Kingdom (UK) Prime Minister Boris Johnson will visit India in April end as a part of efforts to boost UK opportunities in the region. This will be his first major international trip after Britain’s exit from the European Union. Boris Johnson was scheduled to visit India in January as part of efforts to speed up trade talks between the two nations. However, the trip was cancelled in wake of the spike in COVID-19 cases in the UK.
The Boris Johnson-led UK government said that it would tilt its shift towards the Indo-pacific region as a part of its Integrated Review of government policies for the coming years, saying the area increasingly represented the geopolitical centre of the world.
In January, when Boris Johnson was scheduled to visit India on Republic Day, his office said that the Prime Minister hoped to rearrange his visit before UK’s meeting with the G7 in June. The G7 meet will also be attended by PM Modi as a visitor.
Last month, Britain made a formal request to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), seeking membership of the 11-country bloc to open new avenues for post-Brexit trade and influence. It has also applied to become a dialogue partner of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
“We are pursuing trade deals from Australia to the U.S. and around the world – particularly in the Indo-Pacific region, a huge growth market for future”, foreign minister Dominic Raab wrote in December.