Rishi Sunak, British Prime Minister approved a new youth mobility partnership scheme on Wednesday, which will provide 3,000 visas to 18-30-year-old degree-educated Indians each year to live and work in the UK for up to two years.
The reciprocal system, which will also include British people living and working in India, was ink last year as part of the UK-India Migration and Mobility Partnership (MMP) and will be formally introduce in early 2023.
Sunak announced the plan as part of the UK’s Indo-Pacific strategy at the G20 Summit in Bali, when he met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to confirm the new customized route, which Downing Street claims makes India the first visa-national country to benefit from such a scheme.
…Rishi Sunak
“I know firsthand the great value of our rich cultural and historic ties with India,” said Sunak, Britain’s first Prime Minister of Indian heritage.
“I am delight that even more of India’s best young people will now be able to experience everything that life in the UK has to offer – and vice versa – enriching our economies and cultures,” he said.
The introduction of the UK-India Young Professionals Scheme has been deemed a “important moment” for the bilateral relationship and the UK’s broader commitment to strengthening ties with the Indo-Pacific region in order to enhance both the Indian and British economies.
It is also seem as an effort to move on with the ongoing free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations, which are now schedule to last until at least March of next year.
…Rishi Sunak
According to Downing Street, this will be India’s first FTA with a European country, and it will build on the UK-India commercial relationship, which is worth GBP 24 billion per year.
According to the report, the UK has more ties with India than virtually any other country in the Indo-Pacific region, as roughly a quarter of all international students in the UK are from India, and Indian investment in the UK supports 95,000 jobs across the country.
“Along with our mobility partnership with India, we are enhancing our capabilities to deport immigration offenders.” “In May 2021, the UK and India signed a landmark memorandum of understanding (MoU) aimed at increasing mobility between our countries, returning those with no right to be in the UK and India respectively, and sharing best practice on organized immigration crime,” Downing Street said.
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Sunak will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the margins of the G20 conference in Indonesia, the region’s largest gathering of global leaders since before the coronavirus pandemic.
“The Indo-Pacific is becoming increasingly important for our security and economy.” It is teeming with dynamic and fast-growing economies, and what happens in this region will define the next decade,” Sunak said ahead of the gathering.
According to Downing Street, the UK Prime Minister will encourage China to use its global stage responsibly to resolve geopolitical tensions, ensure regional stability, and contribute to addressing the devastating global impact of the Ukraine war.
It confirmed that work is underway to update last year’s Integrated Review of the country’s foreign policy priorities to account for “Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and China’s evolving challenges.”
Meanwhile, as part of that Integrated Review, the United Kingdom reaffirmed its commitment to establishing the “widest presence” in the Indo-Pacific of any European country.
