New Delhi: The UK and Switzerland will begin negotiations Monday for an updated and enhanced Free Trade Agreement (FTA), the UK government announced. This marks the first round of talks since the UK’s Business and Trade Secretary announced his intention to pursue an ambitious FTA program in July.
The current UK-Switzerland trade deal, largely based on a 1972 EU-Swiss deal, excludes digital trade and data flows. Given that 80% of all services exported from the UK to Switzerland were digitally delivered in 2021, an updated agreement would aim to address this gap.
Switzerland is the UK’s 10th largest trading partner and 7th largest export market, with £51 billion in trade in 2023. The UK government believes that an enhanced FTA could further strengthen the trading relationship, drive economic growth, and create jobs across the UK.
Services trade accounts for nearly £30 billion of UK-Swiss trade, despite the existing trade agreement focusing mostly on goods. A contemporary agreement could support jobs across the UK, including 120,000 service-sector jobs directly linked to trade with Switzerland.
The UK government sees this as an opportunity to provide much-needed long-term certainty on travel arrangements for UK firms. For example, Nestlé Purina recently announced a £150m investment to revamp its Wisbech, Cambridgeshire factory with new technology and 40 new jobs.
The press release also announced that the UK Government will welcome global investors to the International Investment Summit in London next week, resuming negotiations. The summit will showcase the UK as a prime destination for inward investment.
The upgraded UK-Switzerland FTA will feature detailed commitments on services and investment, providing UK and Swiss businesses with guaranteed access to each other’s markets for encouraging investment and services trade in both directions.
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