India, UK agree on text of civil nuclear deal: Lord Peter Mandelson

India and the UK have agreed on the text of a landmark civil nuclear deal and a formal pact may be signed within a week, Britain's business secretary Lord Peter Mandelson announced today.

"The civil nuclear deal text has been agreed to and it will be signed soon, may be within a week after ministerial approvals," Lord Mandelson told a joint press conference with commerce minister Anand Sharma after the hour-long meeting of the Joint Economic and Trade Committee at the Lancaster House.

He said the two sides have also agreed to open up a number of professional services like legal, accountancy and banking between the two countries.

"We have made great progress in a number of professional services areas - lawyers, accountancy and banking.  All these indicate reasonable progress.

"We have been able to open up the professional and business services area between us and we hope to do more work for greater collaboration in the areas of manufacturing, particularly high end of manufacturing - high technology, high value added activity," Mandelson said.