Ahmedabad - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson indicated he was ready to offer more visas to India in return for this year sealing a free-trade deal that could boost annual bilateral trade by billions of pounds.

"I have always been in favour of talented people coming to this country," Johnson told reporters. "We are short to the tune of hundreds of thousands of people in our economy and we need to have a progressive approach and we will."

Britain has made getting a trade deal with India one of its post-Brexit priorities as ministers, India wants greater opportunities for Indians to live and work in Britain.

The UK High Commission said, the UK and Indian businesses will confirm more than one billion pounds in new investments and export deals in areas from software engineering to health, creating almost 11,000 jobs across the UK.

India can become a customer of UK’s green technology and that service trade can also be strengthened. Britain has said the trade deal could almost double British exports to India, and by 2035 boost total trade by 28 billion pounds ($38 billion) per year. Total trade in 2019 was worth 23 billion pounds, according to British statistics.

Johnson will hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Friday after concluding his engagements in Gujarat on Thursday.

UK will confirm major new science and tech collaboration, including a digital health partnership and a joint investment fund for Indian deep-tech and AI start-ups, supported by the UK and Indian governments.

"As he moves on to New Delhi on Friday, the prime minister will also use this week's visit to drive progress in negotiations on the landmark UK-India free trade agreement, which is expected to help double our trade and investment by 2030," the high commission said.