Early harvest is the precursor agreement to a full-fledged free trade pact between India and the UK

India and the United Kingdom will hold early harvest talks on a trade pact this month.

Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Hardeep Singh Puri will hold talks with the UK’s minister for international trade Ranil Jayawardena with the aim of arriving at an “early harvest" pact post Brexit said a LiveMint report.

The two ministers would aim to identify issues that could go into an “early harvest" package. Market access was one of the issues on the table, a source was quoted as saying.

Early harvest is the precursor agreement to a full-fledged free trade pact between India and the UK.

The talks on Tuesday follow discussions between Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and his UK counterpart Liz Truss in November. It will be the fourth between Puri and Jayawardena.

“The November ministerial demonstrated the strength of the long-standing UK-India relationship, with both parties agreeing to continue to drive forward progress through the Enhanced Trade Partnership, which could lead to a free trade agreement in the future," reports quoted a spokesperson of the UK’s department for international trade (DIT) as saying after the November talks.

It was then agreed that “an MoS (minister of state) level meeting will take place in January 2021 to review the progress and work on potential deliverables," the report said, adding that market access was one of the issues under discussion.