Textiles – Sector Update – Zero-duty UK access to boost Indian textile exports

The India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which will come into force on 15th Jul’26, is a significant milestone in bilateral trade. The agreement will provide duty-free access across ~99% of India's tariff lines. For India's labor-intensive sectors (textiles, apparels, leather, and marine products, in particular), the agreement removes the longstanding 8-12% import duty disadvantage, putting Indian exporters on equal footing with regional competitors such as Bangladesh and Vietnam in the ~GBP20bn UK apparel market. The parallel rollout of the India-UK Double Contributions Convention will give services and professional mobility a meaningful lift, extending the dual social security contribution exemption for IT and engineering professionals posted in the UK, from 3 years to 5. With the fastest signature-to-implementation timeline among deals of this size, CETA's structure brings a strong degree of operational predictability, which should encourage large, compliant vendors to consolidate their supply chains within the corridor and support India's deeper integration into global trade over the longer term. This report provides a brief overview of how the UK’s textile and apparel market has been shaping up over the past few years, including clothing import trends, and delves into the potential opportunities opening up for Indian apparel/clothing exporters with the implementation of CETA.