London Eye: Scotch will flow from Glasgow

Indian imitators haven’t either, even if a manager from the Scotch Whisky Association remarked in India, in a way, that there’s more Scotch whisky drunk in India than is produced in all of Scotland. Indian manufacturers now make some whisky that a few connoisseurs find better than Scotch, but it isn’t Scotch.

It’s no quirk that led British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to bang on about getting more Scotch into India at lower tariffs at just about every Indo-British occasion that came along, including a visit to a gurdwara.

The two prime ministers will neither drink nor talk Scotch together, but Boris Johnson has only to mention trade, and that word will translate into Scotch straightaway. If Boris Johnson could talk Scotch in a gurdwara, he surely will in Glasgow, with no less than the Indian PM as audience.

At present, more than 50 million bottles of Scotch whisky are exported to India every year. It says something of an Indian love of whisky that this export still adds up to only 2 percent of the Indian market. This, the Scotch Whisky Association says, is partly due to the 150 percent tariff applied by the Central government in India.

The Scotch Whisky Association declares: “Securing improved market access to India is the Association’s number one trade priority.” It has lobbied Boris Johnson particularly hard to raise this matter in the course of a meeting with Modi.

Britain is looking for at least three times that level of export through the round of trade talks due to get under way. That would still make Scotch only 6 percent of the Indian market, but given Indian volumes of whisky consumption, the Scotch Whisky Association would drink to that for a long time.

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has as good as promised the British substantially greater access to the Indian market for Scotch whisky, and with reduced tariffs. The assurance was given to Liz Truss when she was trade secretary. As foreign secretary now she continues to be an influential voice through the trade talks.

Truss talked trade again during her recent visit to India on board the Royal Navy’s Carrier Strike Group – the British have not lost an occasion to push more Scotch into India. Given Goyal’s promise, the talks ahead face two questions. First, just how much more Scotch to let in at tariffs reduced to what level. Second, what India will get in return.

The second is turning out to be tricky. A prime Indian demand is ease of movement of more Indian professionals to the UK. The UK has a particular shortage of nurses currently. This marks an odd bargaining position from India: we’ll let in more Scotch if you take away our nurses and look after them well.

Officials have been talking also about securing concessions for more export of Indian textiles to the UK. It’s hard to think what kind of textiles from India Britain is hungry for that might match the Indian thirst for Scotch. The bureaucrat rather than business-led negotiations could well deliver a deal where India could turn out a heavy loser.

Talks aimed at a more comprehensive free trade agreement are due to begin once the British can get whisky out of the way – or get whisky on its way. For the British the position is clear: no whisky, no deal.