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PM Starmer wants to as soon as 'humanly possible'

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PM encourages hundreds on trade mission to utilise deal

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Business group: growth push welcome, warns on tax

(Updates with comments to the business leaders, business group

paragraphs 1, 6-7, 10-11)

By Alistair Smout

MUMBAI, Oct 8 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Keir

Starmer said he wanted a trade deal with India to be implemented

as soon as "humanly possible" as he began a two-day visit on

Wednesday, joined by more than a hundred leaders from the

business, culture and university sectors.

Britain and India signed a free trade agreement in July

during a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sealing a

deal to cut tariffs on goods from textiles to whisky and cars,

and allow more market access for businesses.

Talks on the trade pact were concluded in May after three

years of stop-start negotiations, with both sides hastening

efforts to clinch a deal in the shadow of tariff turmoil

unleashed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

The deal between the world's fifth- and sixth-largest

economies aims to increase bilateral trade by a further 25.5

billion pounds ($34 billion) by 2040.

But the government has said that the projections were a

floor, not a ceiling, to the ambition of the deal, and the visit

with executives from the likes of oil major BP, engine

maker Rolls-Royce, telecom firm BT, was aimed at

maximising Britain's biggest post-Brexit trade deal.

"It provides huge opportunities," Starmer told the delegates

of the trade mission on arrival in Mumbai, adding he had asked

his team to implement the deal as "quickly as humanly possible."

"I think the opportunities are already opening up... Our job

is to make it easier for you to seize the opportunities."

Starmer will hold bilateral talks with Modi on Thursday.

Both sides have said they are looking to ratify the deal and

bring it into effect within the next year.

Growth is one of Starmer's key priorities as he tries to

reverse his Labour party's slide in the polls, with a November

fiscal budget expected to show a tricky fiscal picture.

Shevaun Haviland, Director General of the British Chambers

of Commerce business group, said that Starmer should avoid

taxing businesses again at the budget, but also drive growth

through building ties with countries like India and the Gulf,

where trade talks are ongoing.

"We've got partners all over the world, and that should be

our role," she told reporters, adding that Britain could seek

free trade deals while also dealing with fallout from a global

trade war and negotiating to lower U.S. tariffs, saying "I think

that the government is big enough to do both."