India is considering a dedicated "green channel" aimed at facilitating investments by European and UK companies. The proposed mechanism is expected to
provide dedicated handholding and help investors navigate government approvals and other processes. As per sources the proposed framework is likely to be on the lines of the existing Japan Plus and Korea Plus mechanisms, which facilitate and fast-track investment proposals from Japanese and South Korean investors. The proposal comes as India seeks to attract greater foreign investment from Europe and the UK and ensure that trade relationships also support capital flows into the country. In fact the DPIIT (Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade), working through Invest India, has run country-specific "fast-track”/“Plus"mechanisms since 2014 — Japan Plus, the Indo-German Fast-Track Mechanism (2015), Italy’s Fast-Track (2018), the EU Investment Facilitation Mechanism (2017), and most recently a Fast-Track Mechanism with Austria, operationalised in April 2026. These are single-window coordination platforms for resolving investor-specific regulatory bottlenecks, not tariff or customs instruments. The EU-UK green channel follows the same template, coming after the India-UK FTA (July 2025) and the India-EU FTA (concluded January 2026). Jayant Krishna, Former CEO, National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), UK India Business Council (UKIBC) and Senior Fellow, CSIS told Times Now Digital, "India's bilateral trade with EU and UK put together is bigger than that with China or with the US. We had done a lot of spadework for the UK-India FTA when I was the Group CEO of UKIBC and later I had been advocating EU-India FTA through backchannel diplomacy efforts. History of Indian economy shows that a higher volume of trading relationships with nations invariably leads to India getting more FDI through those countries. Through the green channel, the ease of doing business would improve substantially and the regulatory cholesterol would get eased." Mitali Nikore, Founder, Nikore Associates told Times Now Digital, “non-tariff measures now cost exporters more than tariffs in 88% of countries, per UNCTAD’s May 2026 assessment, and poor regulatory transparency alone can add costs equal to a 28% tariff. India-EU trade already stands at $136 billion, with the EU expecting the new FTA to double its exports to India by 2032. That scale of growth will not materialise if approvals and compliance stay slow at the state level. A green channel that expedites approvals for trade facilitation case by case is what actually converts tariff cuts into trade.” The proposed mechanism could help streamline investor coordination and make it easier for European and UK companies to navigate approvals, subject to government decisions and applicable regulatory processes.
