(Karachi) European Union (EU) leaders have signed the post-Brexit trade deal agreed with Britain, AFP News Agency announced on Twitter.

The deal has been inked by EU chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel in a brief ceremony on Wednesday. The deal agreement will now be flown to London in an RAF jet for the signature of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, on the eve of Britain's departure from the EU single market.

The approval will allow provisional application of the trade agreement between EU and Britain from next year, before it is ratified by the European Parliament by the end of February.

Earlier, the European Union governments have approved a trade deal regulating relations between the 27-nation bloc and the UK, paving the way for its provisional application from January 1.

The deal, which preserves Britain’s zero-tariff and zero-quota access to the EU’s single market of 450 million consumers, was reached more than four years after Britons voted by a slim margin in a referendum to leave the bloc.