Welspun Living, the Indian company that makes championship towels for Wimbledon, has accelerated preparations for the India-UK free trade agreement (FTA) that came into effect on Wednesday. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.

The home textile giant supplies bedsheets and towels to British retailers like John Lewis and Tesco. CEO Dipali Goenka told the BBC that many brands have visited India recently to chart business roadmaps. "We typically did joint forward planning only for our US customers, but now it's happening with UK clients too," she said.

The FTA removes or reduces tariffs on 99% of Indian exports to the UK and 90% of UK imports into India. The British government called it "the UK's biggest and most economically significant bilateral trade pact" since leaving the EU. UK GDP is estimated to increase by 0.13% (£4.8bn) and India's by 0.06% (£5.1bn per year) due to the deal.

Labour-heavy sectors like textiles, garments, footwear, cars and marine products expect growth. Goenka expects exports to the UK to grow in double digits. She noted India was at a disadvantage to Bangladesh and Pakistan, whose exports entered the UK duty-free under the Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS), while India paid 12% tariffs.

The pact also benefits British alcohol companies. Customs duties on Scotch whisky are cut from 150% to 75% immediately and then gradually to 40% over 10 years. Avneet Singh of Modern Drinks Pvt Ltd called it "a real shift, not a small tweak."

However, trade experts say the overall impact could be "incremental rather than transformational." Data from GTRI shows India exported $13.4bn worth of goods to the UK in 2025-2026, but over half entered duty-free. India imported $11.7bn from the UK, over 45% of which was silver, excluded from the agreement.

Ajay Srivastava of GTRI said the real test is whether products that previously faced UK tariffs of 4-16% - such as textiles, garments, footwear, carpets, cars, seafood, grapes and mangoes - see higher export orders. The FTA's impact should become visible over the next one to three years.

Unresolved challenges include the UK maintaining tariffs on steel imports above a specific quota and the UK's proposed carbon tax (CBAM), which could reduce FTA gains. Additionally, India's FTA utilisation is low - only 20-30% of eligible exports use preferences due to lack of awareness among small businesses.

"The government and industry associations will have to be proactive in dealing with these issues because otherwise tariff reductions will not automatically translate into higher exports," Srivastava said.